Govt should use social media to combat rumours, not ban it

Police forces across the country should study the exodus of north-eastern people from Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and other urban centres.

What is happening here could happen anywhere in India. The problem – threatening messages sent by SMS - begins without warning and spreads at lightning speed.

Welcome to the new world.

If the root cause of the problem was rumours regarding attacks targeting people from north-eastern states, thanks to the Internet in general and social media in particular, the rumours travelled like wildfire – and have had the desired effect from the point of view of those who initiated the rumours. As with the rumours, insecurity spread like wildfire, too.

This morning in the Rajya Sabha, the Samajwadi Party asked “for social media to be shut for a couple of days to prevent rumour mongering about attacks targeting people from north-east.”

That’s a predictable knee-jerk reaction. If social media is to be shut down each time there is a trouble-making rumour, trouble-makers could ‘game’ the situation and cause social media to be shut down with regularity.

What the authorities, especially police forces across the country, need to do is to recognise and acknowledge the new tool available to trouble-mongers. In a pre-digital era, rumours would take time to travel, and, presumably, police forces would hear them before damage could be done.

Think of the current incident as a test-case that all trouble-makers will study closely. If this worked in Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad, it could work anywhere in the country. A new city, a new target, a new rumour – and we have a potent recipe for chaos.

Police forces need to monitor social media continuously to spot potentially dangerous messages before they spread. They need to take immediate action against those who originated these messages (and, at this stage, they would be relatively easy to find and identify). They need to counter the malicious messages with clear and unambiguous statements at promptly called press conferences on their commitment to uphold the law and to protect those who have been targeted.

They also need to use social media also to spread the message of their commitment. Those who are worried should be able to immediately get calming and confidence-building answers through phone hotlines, Twitter and Facebook. The authorities, instead of shutting down social media, need to use the power of social media to their advantage.

This can be done if there is a clearly defined standard operating procedure. There is no time to think through and create a response – by then, the damage would be done.

There is another important need – the definition of crimes such as these needs to be black and white. Police forces should not have to worry about the politicisation which is certain to follow, or worry about which political party or pressure group could be upset or affected by police action. The police response needs to be quick, firm and decisive – that, more than anything else will lend confidence to worried victims.

The monitoring of social media by police and intelligence forces may, sadly, be the easier aspect in preventing or dealing with repetitions of this incident. The harder aspect is the confidence that police forces have in the politicians of the country to allow them to uphold the laws of the land – but it is a critical factor in managing such situations in the future.

And make no mistake about it – we will see more and more of such incidents, in different parts of the country, with new rumours, new victims and new criminals.