Toxic trolling: On India-Pakistan conflict, troll army.
Online threats of violence cannot be allowed in the name of free speech.
A full-scale war between India and Pakistan may have been averted, but the troll army has come out in force to disturb the peace. After India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced on May 10 that an understanding had been reached between the two sides to halt all military actions, his personal account on X (formerly Twitter), was flooded with abusive comments which did not spare his daughter. Mr. Misri locked the account, and several diplomats and politicians have condemned the toxic culture in no uncertain terms, pointing out that several red lines had been crossed. Mr. Misri was only doing his job and conveying a decision taken by the political leadership. The Foreign Secretary had been addressing the media since Operation Sindoor began on May 7, in response to the deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22, in which 26 people died. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B), which had rightly slammed Pakistan for unleashing “a full-blown disinformation offensive” on social media about the ground reality regarding Operation Sindoor, remained quiet about the vicious trolling of Mr. Misri and the doxing of his daughter. Unfortunately, with the phenomenal rise of social media in India but little Internet literacy, there is a pattern of platforms being regularly used for hate speech, abusive comments, and deliberate distortion of facts.
The public sphere may have become more participatory, but that does not necessarily ensure civil behaviour. Surveys have shown that women, minorities and marginalised communities are particularly targeted by trolls. The extreme reactions often include rape and death threats. With surveillance now the byword for all tech companies, surely it should not take long to locate and end the online run of trolls. A stringent anti-troll law must be put in place to stop the acute mental and physical harassment trolls can cause. The draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules, 2025, set to be rolled out this year, prescribe penalties for misuse of personal information. Now, there are only a limited number of provisions under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act to address cyberbullying. The courts have been more proactive by directing quick removal of offending content and also mandating the disclosure of basic subscriber information linked to such accounts. In the Shaviya Sharma case (2024), the Delhi High Court had noted that “there can be no doubt that acts of doxing if permitted to go on unchecked could result in violation of right to privacy”. In a democracy, all voices should be heard but disinformation and misinformation must be stopped with the help of guidelines and the law.