Dear Mark,

My name is Niyaz Kannanchery from the state of Kerala, India. Your creation has been a massive success, and the entire world agrees with that. I would like to write this open letter to you, as well as to my fellow countrymen, because both are involved in what I’m about to share.

Before I joined college in 2009, I had an inactive Facebook account. I studied in Bangalore, which is known as the IT city of India. That year, my college, Brindavan, had the highest number of international students, including people from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bhutan, Vietnam, and many more.

During my time in college, I became close friends with two students from Sri Lanka, Mr. Chamika and Mr. Rasika. Both of them insisted that I and my friend Mr. Nihad (from Kerala) start using Facebook. At that time, Orkut was still very popular in Kerala, and we were hesitant to switch to Facebook. This led to many friendly debates between us. Our main argument was that Orkut was a genuine friendship platform, mainly focused on building connections, whereas Facebook seemed overloaded with games and other distractions.

from Left – Rasika | Ashuthosh | SituMol | Faizan | me | Muhib | Chamika | Nihad

But we both knew that Facebook was becoming more popular worldwide, and many of our international college friends were already there. So, we joined. Later, we got hooked on Facebook games like Farmville, Fish Aquarium, and Restaurant Story. We maintained those virtual businesses every day after college. It became an addiction. Those were good times. Even though years have passed, those memories remain crystal clear, as if they were just yesterday.

After college, around 2011, I started to dislike Facebook. I felt it wasn’t offering any new features. I’m not sure why I started to feel this way, but after you introduced several new features — like editing posts, replying to comments, page insights, scheduled posts, name changes, the “like” button variations, memory sharing, and more — I found myself drawn back to Facebook.

However, there’s a big issue that concerns me about Facebook, one that I don’t see in other social media platforms. I have friends and colleagues from foreign countries on my Facebook friend list, and I don’t see this problem among them. But here in India, many people are using your amazing platform to divide and incite communal violence. In many public groups, 90% of the posts are about politics, religious issues, and the like. People engage in ugly fights, using very bad language. Some of my friends share offensive posts and make threats against religions on their timelines. I observe all of this, but I don’t comment or react, because I believe that sound only occurs when both hands come together.

This is not a joke. I take this very seriously. Seeing these negative posts daily, I fear it might influence people to hate their Indian brothers and sisters. Currently, in India, one religious group refuses to see another as brothers. Instead, they want to push them out of the country. This could lead to disaster, because I fear that once these virtual tensions boil over, they will manifest in reality — and in some parts of India, that’s already happening. Violence has slowly started in the northern regions of the country.

In 1994, world history recorded a tragic event between two tribes — the Hutus and the Tutsis — in Rwanda. These groups fought against their own brothers, classmates, and colleagues, resulting in a death toll of between 800,000 and 1 million over just 100 days. This incident is depicted in the movie Hotel Rwanda. Similarly, in India, two religious groups are forming divisions. I’m afraid that when the anger reaches a tipping point, this could explode in a similar way.

These people are unaware that there is a bigger agenda at play behind it all. They won’t realize this, just as many didn’t during British rule in the 18th century. The British strategy was simple: divide and rule. This same tactic seems to be playing out now. I can provide examples, but this letter is already long enough. Yes, the game is about gaining power, but my friends, sadly, are unaware of it. I don’t know how to solve this, but I know you are a very intelligent person. I request that you find a solution to save my country and help us live here in peace.

NOTE .: Once, you mentioned in the media that you love India. If that’s truly from the bottom of your heart, please do something, as the creator of this platform, to help us resolve this issue.

With Love

Niyaz Kannanchery