Social media, privacy and online conduct
Islamic Studies · Key Stage 3 · The School
Old teaching, new medium
GHEEBAH — saying something true about someone that they would dislike, behind their back — is named directly in the Quran with a strong image: like eating your dead brother's flesh (49:12). That teaching does not pause at a screen. Screenshotting, quoting or forwarding counts exactly the same as saying it aloud.
Privacy and spying
The same verse instructs: do not spy on one another (49:12). Applied online, this covers reading someone's messages without permission, sharing a private photo they did not consent to circulate, and digging into someone's account to find something to use against them. Curiosity is not a licence.
Verify before you share
TABAYYUN — verifying a report before acting on it — is commanded directly: if a source you cannot fully trust brings you news, check it, so you do not harm someone through ignorance and regret it (49:6). A share button makes spreading an unverified claim as easy as one tap, which is exactly why checking first matters more, not less.
Imagine a made-up case. A screenshot lands in a Year 9 group chat that Sam is not in. It says Sam was caught shoplifting on Saturday. The caption says "don't trust them, pass it on". Three people forwarded it. None says they saw it. You ask where it came from. Nobody knows. TABAYYUN comes first. The claim is unchecked, and 49:6 tells believers to check news first, so they do not wrong people by mistake. GHEEBAH is next. If it were true, passing it on behind Sam's back would be like gheebah. One guide to gheebah (islam101.com) says that if the fault is not there, it is slander. NAMIMAH means carrying words around to stir up suspicion and anger. The caption "don't trust them" comes close to that. Any one of these three questions is enough to hold the message back. So you do not forward it. A good response is to keep the screenshot, tell a teacher or another trusted adult, report it on the app and be kind to Sam. Telling a teacher is not forwarding. The aim is to get help for Sam, and the same guide allows a wronged person to complain to someone who can stop the wrong.