Trolls on a roll

Lada Guruden Singh

You could be the biggest superstar or a politician, a social activist or a professor, an economist or a business tycoon; a college student or a home maker, chances are that if you hold an opinion or do something that does not go well with the majoritarian voice — you would be hounded, attacked in the virtual world. Trolling levels all.

This internet phenomenon, where a bunch of faceless men/women gang up to poke fun at the victim, for their amusement or misplaced desire to feel empowered, can cause mental harassment. 

In fact, recently when Karan Johar wrote a brave and frank opinion piece on trolling and how he has come to deal with it, we got an insight for the first time of the struggles of a victim of trolling and how — he/she copes with it.  

Anushka Sharma has been trolled quite regularly for Virat Kohli’s poor performances in cricket matches. Though Virat did defend her chivalrously. 

The cases of Karan and Anushka also point to the case of minorities. Karan is taunted and trolled for his sexual choices and Anushka for being a woman! It’s part of a patriarchal politics that fervently pushes to keep its masculine power and order intact. A few days ago, when Sona Mohapatra criticised Salman Khan for his infamous remark where he equated his shooting ordeal to feeling like a raped women, Bhai’s fans hurled abuses at her. Her character and her work and her age and looks — nothing was left out of the gambit of perverted attacks. 

The insensitivities and horror don’t end there. Be it Fardeen Khan, who was attacked for gaining weight or Tanmay Bhat, who faced the brunt for a controversial Snapchat video on Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar. As a country, every time, someone becomes the target of our jokes, we end up exposing our own racial, social and cultural biases. An actor or an actress must always look perfect, a comedian must always be politically correct, and a celebrity must not have a political opinion (and/or must be pro-establishment). More often than not, comments can range from abuses to threats of rape and murder. And invariably it also involves demonising the victim’s character and credentials.

At the heart of social media is the idea of freedom of speech but what complicates this argument is that it also brings forth millions of trollers who infest the forums with their biases and agendas. Why can’t one have his/her own opinion without fearing a backlash or a threat? 

Today, it is almost okay to abuse and rave and rant on Twitter. Well, if the USA’s Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump can do it and get away with it, then who is really there to stop anyone else from doing the same. What’s worrying, however, is that in certain instances,  social media is used to incite masses. Last year, actor Shruti Seth tweeted about Prime Minister’s social media initiative about ‘Selfie with a daughter’ with the hashtag #SelfieObsessedPM and that was enough for trolls to unleash themselves with abuses and threats. It’s not that trolling is one sided. And no, politicians and media isn’t spared either. What emboldens the trolls is the fact that in some cases, their followers include the politicians themselves. Every leading politician is guilty of it.

What’s dangerous, however, is not just the attack but a smear campaign that almost always inevitably follows. In Tanmay’s case, once his video was incinerated — soon enough the topic shifted to a number of tweets attributed to him nearly four to seven seven years back that cast him as a pervert, a misogynist, a racist. On doing some checks personally, one found that these tweets were actually fake but no one really bothered to check their authenticity before pulling the trigger. It wasn’t an isolated incident, rather yet another pattern where trolls deliberately push the public opinion against the victim, using fake tweets/posts to circulate and create mob-fury.  This is a scary phenomenon, because social media, can become an uncontrollable monster during a situation involving religious groups, especially.  

Trolls, often start of as representatives of fringe and then gain acceptance, as they amass followers lending credibility to their abuses. But when does a troll become accepted by the society?  It is when he/she is also followed by enough celebrities/politicians/social media influencers. So whatever he/she tweets is picked up by media or creates a reaction. The denunciations become selective. Today self-styled film critic KRK, who rose to fame through a series of unflattering, almost obsessive tweets to a number of starlets and still continues to do so, is no longer considered an aberration. Rather, he is followed by a number of Bollywood celebrities and has in general, more than a million followers on twitter. Yes, you still have some celebs like Sonakshi Sinha (more recently Siddharth Malhotra as well)  who famously took him on, two years back but none of it has really changed or dented KRK’s status.  

Filmmaker Shirish Kunder, an avid social media user feels that because trolls generate traffic for the social media platforms, most sites choose not to do anything about it. There is business behind it. Kunder deals with the trolls by blocking them regularly, whenever he gets time and by choosing to not respond to abuses.

A number of studies done on social media behaviour have pointed to the fact that trolls in real life are usually well behaved persons who thrive on the power of anonymity to attack and feel equal with a celebrity. Getting away by abusing someone is more of a power trip than anything else. It’s interesting to note that while we tend to complain about people writing unflattering posts about politicians in power, most of the victims of social media abuse are left to themselves to tackle the case. Poiltical activist Kavita Krishnan who has been a subject of attacks for a number of years on social media- was once exposed to a live webchat ostensibly moderated by a leading portal that was littered with threats of rape — “Tell women not to wear revealing clothes and we will not rape them.” and, “Kavita — tell me where do I come and rape you using a condom.”

Rather than curtailing the freedom of speech which is at the heart of internet freedom, social media platforms must be reined in and asked to come up with software that automatically blocks any abuser.  And if they don’t want to do it because it impacts their business, the government should step in. More importantly, there has to be far greater pro-activeness to control fake tweets and posts that can create much damage in real life.

Sometimes however, an opportunity comes your way where you can troll the trolls! Alia Bhatt has been able to turn around the whole game. Alia became the subject of jokes about her ‘low’ IQ, when she came on Koffee with Karan. However, she left the social media universe in awe when she came up with a video where she lampooned her own lack of general knowledge. 

While most of the celebrities now choose not to respond to trolls, lest it excite them more, conversation is at the heart of social media revolution. What’s the point of tweeting if one is constantly hurled abuses? Actor Imran Khan left social media because he just couldn’t deal with the negativity that was being unleashed on him. There are very few like Abhishek Bachchan, who have made it an art to take down trolls or come up with witty responses but that demands much patience and much grace and one isn’t sure- how those two hold when you and your family are eaten raw and live — digitally.