Social media is a wonderful thing. In the US, for example, phone videos of police shooting dead Black men distributed over social media have raised awareness about systemic racism. But social media has its dark side too. Online abuse, for example. Driven by what experts call the “online disinhibition effect”, social media interactions often ignore social mores, leading to alarming levels of rudeness, abuse and, in India, even attempts to stoke communal or sectarian violence.
Concerned about this, Woman and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi last week announced that women facing abuse online should send her email and told the National Commission of Women to monitor such cases.
In India, supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party have displayed great enthusiasm in confronting social media users who appear to criticise the organisation. Women journalists such as Barkha Dutt, Rana Ayyub and Sagarika Ghose have faced particularly vicious abuse. Maneka Gandhi's announcement seemed to take the wind out of their sails and many hurt right wingers took to Twitter to criticise her.
Not only online trolls, but even a Bharatiya Janata Party state legislator and party general secretary, BJP Karnataka got ruffled up by Maneka Gandhi’s plans.
As can be expected, left-liberals on Twitter indulged in a bit of schadenfreude at this BJP social civil war.
Rattled by this controversy, Maneka Gandhi was quick to put out some soothing signals on Twitter, trying to assure BJP supporters that their online activities will not be curbed.
Corrections & clarifications: This article has been edited to remove a tweet that the owner of the handle claims he had not posted.
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