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By Chaitanya Marpakwar
Photo: AP
In India, bad rumors circulate on the Internet – often with fatal consequences. On the subcontinent, the proliferation of such reports leads to more and more cruel lynchings.
New Delhi – A message to friends, relatives or acquaintances about the WhatsApp news service can now have fatal consequences in India. Because on the subcontinent, incidents accumulate, in which spread rumors and false information that a hysteria ignites, leading to cruel incidents of lynching. A few days ago, two men were killed and mistakenly identified as abductors by WhatsApp. Since this incident in the state of Assam, in the north-east of the country, the police attempt to suppress the false news in social media.
The incident had caused shockwaves: Nilotpal Das, 29, and Abhijeet Nath, 30, had visited a picnic area near a waterfall and had been arrested by angry villagers. The crowd dragged them out of the car and beat them until they were dead. According to authorities, the attack was preceded by phone calls and WhatsApp messages, according to which two kidnappers were on the run with a black SUV. Later, it turned out that they were rumors. This is not the first incident of this kind, nor the last … Last Sunday, five men were killed in western India for the same reason.
Stories of false news about "kidnappers" held the sub-continent's authorities in suspense throughout the year, one of the largest markets for the media in the world. In India, 200 million people already use WhatsApp and 240 million on Facebook. The Indian telecommunications agency has about 1.2 billion mobile phone contracts, many Indians have several contracts, for example for data transmission or for communication – and about 300 million have a smartphone. In the state of Tamil Nadu, south of the country, two people were killed in May because they were suspected of being child traffickers: a man was beaten and more later hanged on a bridge; A 63-year-old woman who returned home with family after visiting a temple was lynched after stopping her car to give candy to the children.
New technology covers many villagers
Ritesh Bhatia, a state investigator on cybercrime, explains the phenomenon with the scope of WhatsApp, which has become "dangerous" and sometimes deadly. For many Indians, the first meeting with the Internet is via the smartphone. The exchange of data is cheap, almost free, and the devices are also: "So there has been a flood of information in the villages." WhatsApp messages spread like wildfire and mostly sent by friends or relatives considered. In particular, rural residents could not distinguish between true information and false information, he says.
"People believe what is sent to them – and the result is lynching," says Govind Ethiraj, founder of Boom Live. fight the false news. According to Ethiraj, every day Boom Live finds a dozen fake news on the web that spread hatred and often have a local connection. But even the megacities of India are not immune to rumors: in Calcutta, a false news spread during the celebration of the end of the chaos of Ramadan. He said that the state would oversee the four-day celebration and that all authorities and schools were closed.
Even in the modern computer city of Bangalore, two people were lynched. The cause is a video of the Whats app that is supposed to show a kidnapping with two men on a motorcycle: A culprit attacks the kids and shoots them on the pillion. Originally from Pakistan, the video is actually a child protection film showing a dragging scene to warn against kidnappings. A note in the background had been cut from the filmstrip.
There were hundreds of arrests in 2017 alone
Even political parties are increasingly using the Whats app to mobilize their supporters, while radical groups preach hatred and target the minorities. India is voted next year, and outrage about Whats app is growing. The group announced in May that it would introduce a new way of controlling membership in a group.
According to the Indian Penal Code, the spread of sedition in books is prohibited and this rule has been adopted in a new computer regulation. That's why there have been hundreds of arrests in 2017. But even the police suggest that the "rumors themselves" are not yet illegal.
Some police departments, such as the state of Maharashtra, have now established a digital crime department. She was supposed to erase the fake content, police department chief Brujesh Singh said, "Rumors and false news about WhatsApp are a threat, we try to fight them."
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