From Deontological to Teleological, Analyzing Hashtag Activism in Twitter Users of Pakistan

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the way twitter users blind follow a hashtag despite knowing the possible harms associated with a tweet. Drawing upon the theoretical perspective of Utalitarianism, or consequential ethics the study asserts that majority of Twitter users in Pakistan may hold teleological approach towards Twitter handler by intentionally posting agnostic content to make their self -perceived viewpoints viral. For the purpose, 300 Twitter users having tendency of posting political content are selected through snowball sampling and then surveyed through a questionnaire developed on 5 points Likert scale. The application of teleological ethical approach is vindicated by the results derived after the collection of data. The presence of significant correlations is observed among the taken variables, proving the manifestation of proposed hypothesis. Though users acknowledge that abusive tweet is unethical but on the contrary when scrutinized, they were found to be a part of the same immoral culture of re-posting violent tweets. The study recommends that users should consider them in the shoes of others before blind following a hashtag.