Be it the Birbhum riots last week, the Palghar girls’ arrest in 2012 or the communist remark by an engineering student in January, sharing content on Facebook has led to the arrest of those who voiced their opinions on the site.
Social media appears to be providing users an easy-to-access and cost-effective platform to voice their opinions. An increasing number of youngsters are choosing social media platforms to vent their emotions.
In the recent past, there has been a series of incidents involving college students using social media to express grievances against the system, namely the FTII case and the Rohith Vemula suicide incident. “Websites like Facebook provide a free run to its users to share content. The college authorities cannot keep a check on every student’s online activities. However, we conduct frequent counselling sessions where students share their emotions,” said a counsellor at one of the IITs.
The line between expressing opinions and offending others with them is gradually thinning on social media. “The Right to Freedom of Speech has been conferred to every citizen so that no one is exploited of it. However, increasing number of people, especially college-goers, use it as an excuse to get away with offensive stuff they write on social media,” explained a Bombay High Court lawyer at the request of anonymity.
“Private tiffs between two people can easily become public through these platforms. Thus, one needs to consider the social reach and impact of these sites while circulating such material,” opined Siddharth Narrain, a Research Assistant at Sarai – Centre for the Studies of Developing Societies. He added that apart from the provisions of the IT Act, 2000, the police can invoke provisions of the IPC to counter inappropriate material shared on social media. Websites like Facebook and Twitter provide options to ‘report abuse’ the content which they find offensive. These reports are then reviewed by the community managers and removed if found to be of offensive nature.
“We receive frequent complaints on abuse of sentiments/beliefs, and have to constantly work to neutralise the offensive content online,” said Mukesh Choudhary, an official at the Cyber Crime Cell at Ahmedabad Crime Branch. According to Choudhary, the increasing number of cyber crimes involving misuse of SIM cards, prank calls, Facebook account hacking and untraceable IP addresses of the accused has posed a challenge to the department. Lately, the police have resorted to social media to address public issues, an example of which is the twitter handle of the Mumbai Police.