How many times have you received emails / SMS like the below?
"Dear Brothers and sisters please send this message to all your contacts!!! If you dont.... A Muslim(s) around the world could be receiving false information about Islam which you know about, send this messages as soon as u have read it. Beware of the following websites"
These people may have good intentions , but their actions are indeed the opposite. These emails/SMS hurt the cause of Islam. In other words, these are counter-productive. Reasons:
1. Reading and forwarding these emails are a waste of our time. How many of us regularly visit genuine Islamic websites? How much time do we spend on them? Do we really need to visit these anti-islamic sites and/or forward their links to others?
How this hurts: We spend negligible amount of time on genuine islamic sites; browsing the fake ones eat up even those few minutes. It's a double whammy if you consider the next point. That is - you are not only avoiding (or starving) the genuine sites, but also increasing the popularity of fake ones.
2. Search Engine Optimization. Search engines like Google, Yahoo etc use complex algorithms to rank websites. The more a website becomes popular, its rank increases. It's like the more marks you get in school, your rank goes up. If a website name appears in so many forums or other sites, or if many people visit that website, then searches at Google and Yahoo will list that site name in the first page.
In other words, if we keep visiting / forwarding fake quran sites, and if someone types "Quran" in Google search, then those fake quran sites will be listed ahead of the genuine Quran related sites. Do you realize why forwarding is a stupid thing to do. So, please dont forward, nor visit the unnecessary websites.
If you want to help Islam, please visit/forward these Quran related links:
http://www.understandquran.com/
http://www.qurancomplex.org/sitemap.asp?l=eng¬Menu=true
If you want to know more, enter the following keywords in your favorite search engines:
'SEO How does it work, 'quality inbound links', 'Website Ranking Algorithms' and 'reciprocal linking strategy'
The same logic applies to Videos too. There are plenty of junk in YouTube (and others). Please dont click/view/forward them.
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Isn't it our responsibility to forbid evil (by telling everyone about anti-islamic or fake quran sites)? Who's responsible when some people read those sites, and get misguided?
On Nov 15th, 2007, i got the above question, and i responded to that brother.
Responsibility to try to stop bad-things DOESN'T always involve advertising about that evil. If a person drinks but wants to quit that habit, you help him out with medications, group support and other help. You dont tell the whole world about it. This is an easy example.
How about a prostitute (I know this is a dramatic example. Please dont be offended). If that is not a crime in your country, you cant approach law enforcement. So, what would you do? "Send/Forward an email to all the people you know saying that in so-and-so place, there's a prostitute. Her email address is ....., her phone # is .........". Hope you got my point.
Now, let's get back to junk websites. How do you and I get to know about them?
1. When you open internet explorer / firefox, it automatically takes to you an anti-islamic site.
2. In the Jumua bayans or other lectures, the imams / speakers are telling those site names. They think those are good ones. Only you and I found out they are bad.
3. We see the billboards/hoardings on those sites on the main roads.
4. We see the advertisement for those sites on NY Times, The Hindu and Arab News.
5. We hear those sites mentioned in CNN, BBC, CBS, Doordharshan, and Al-Jazeera.
Is that how we get to know those sites? If NOT, then how? I get to know of them thru three ways.
1. SMS (Messages on Phone)
2. Emails (with about 200 other email IDs and "FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD:" )
3. On rare occasions, when i search thru Google for some islamic terms / events
So, what do i do when i get SMS or email? Delete them and inform the sender not to do such things. Why do the 3rd source (Google, Yahoo results throwing up those sites) exist? If you understood my main message, you'll know the main culprits are the people who forward and/or click them.