As I grew up in our little Kasana village in Masaka, there was that one woman everyone knew as the village gossiper.
She seemed to know every rumour about who was doing what. She knew about the night dancers, the families who sacrificed children for wealth, husbands cheating on their wives, and everything in between.
She would move from home to home, spreading stories with the magic word ‘mbu.’ My mother often warned that some of her tales were cooked up just so she could keep talking and maybe score a lunch along the way.
But the words she spoke travelled fast. They didn’t stop at our village; they spread to neighbouring villages, fanning out like wildfire. It seems some village members could “forward’ her rumours.
I remember one time she was reported to the LC1 chairman. Some old man demanded she show proof for the claims she had made about him. Village meetings were held near our home, at the house of a retired magistrate.
At first, I thought he was a judge; they called him mulamuzi. Anyway getting back to the gossiper, everyone was eager for an answer, and soon complaints began arriving from other villagers, even drawing in the village council members. She had no answers. Instead, she cried. Crocodile tears.
Last weekend, that scene from Kasana replayed in my mind while I was attending a certain meeting. One of the people in the room, let’s say he qualifies as an elder, even though he had no grey hair, was talking about how many of us, knowingly or unknowingly, are turning into that village gossipers.
We forward messages from one WhatsApp group to another. One clip, one screenshot, one voice note at a time, moving faster than anyone can check or question them. In the process, we become the modern village gossip, carrying rumours across homes, schools, and workplaces without pause. But is what we are forwarding actually true?
Take, for example, our self-proclaimed group pastors and reverends. Many of them forward Bible verses every morning. But wait a minute, are these verses accurate? Has anyone taken the trouble to notice how distortions can creep into those forwarded spiritual messages? And majority are not created by these group pastors but forwarded from who knows where. Clue: You are bound to see the same message shared in different groups and after time it will resurface.
Then there are the motivation masters, sharing long quotes on success. Many of these quotes come from pages built on false statements.
Some are edited. Some appear genuine but are designed to lure readers to certain sites. Yet group members read them without asking a single question.
When it comes to politics, it gets worse. Forwarded, baseless information floods groups daily. We read it, we share it, we forward it, and slowly, it distorts everything we think we know.
The forward button has become a quiet threat. One click sends a message into spaces where trust is high and checks are low. One click turns a rumour into a collective belief. One click gives false content a new life in groups where people think they are safe.
We mislead ourselves one forward at a time. We create confusion in our own homes. We weaken trust in institutions. We fuel conflict. We distort public debate. The danger no longer comes from big platforms alone. It comes from our own habits.
This problem needs discipline from every citizen. You slow down before forwarding. You check screenshots. You question audio. You search for the origin of an image. You wait for credible updates. You correct false claims. You refuse to reward fear.
To get a clearer picture of how harmful this has become, think back to our village gossiper. But now we have modern examples. That very weekend, I watched a 30-minute film, carefully crafted and cast with famous actors, among other things depicting the dangers of forwarding and sharing without verifying. The film, Call 112, is available on
YouTube, but I wish it could be broadcast on national TV for some time. Our people need to see it.
Social media has made the village gossiper invisible yet more powerful. One forwarded clip, one screenshot, one voice note moves from phone to phone, group to group, creating networks of misinformation. Call 112 brings this to life, showing real consequences: families panicking, communities divided, reputations destroyed, and trust eroding. It is a warning that goes beyond entertainment; it is a mirror to our own habits.
But here is the catch: in this digital era, in the age of social media, false information, and fake news, that person, the one carrying the ‘mbu’, is you. Every forward, every share, every unchecked clip turns us into the modern village gossip. We don’t walk from house to house anymore; we move from group to group, from chat to chat, carrying rumours that spread faster than we can question them.