Social Activist Registers FIR Against Facebook

Social activist Nutan Thakur has registered an FIR against Facebook in the civil lines police station of Meerut, under section 66 A of the Information Technology Act 2000. The FIR was made against the social networking giant and its members for abusing the Hindu religion and gods, one profile in particular for instigating communal passions and creating the possibility of riots in the country.

The communalist sentiments expressed on a fake ID Facebook page

Thakur says that a lot of her complaints against visible communalist sentiments on Facebook are actually towards fake IDs but on those IDs, there is clear anger and abuse between Hinduism and Islam. Thakur says the name on the fake profile itself is highly inflammatory, the picture is of three Hindu gods with the graphic of ‘3 Idiots’ written across them, and the remarks from Hindus and Muslims are quite the opposite of friendly. The person who created this profile has basically said that more such profiles will be created if anti-Islam profiles on Facebook aren’t removed. In response, people have posted some anti-Islam sentiments along with posting links meant to derrogate the religion.

Thakur fears that this act will create grounds for some serious riots in India and has complained against Facebook for creating a forum capable of negative sentiment. Last week, Thakur and her IPS husband, Amitabh Thakur lodged a complaint in Lucknow against a Facebook group called “We Hate Gandhi”, following which the group was blocked.

Complaining to Facebook is, agreed, a necessary action, but is registering an FIR against the social network really necessary? Here’s to hoping the communalist sentiments get taken off and that Facebook creates a method of vigilance on hateful sentiments being posted on its public forum. However, holding them responsible for someone’s petty passive aggressive behaviour wouldn’t necessarily get the job done.