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| Photo for representational purpose |
We live in revolutionary times of social media where information flows without any boundaries or restrictions, where people can bluntly share their opinion and reach out to large audiences. Indeed, this needs to be acknowledged and appreciated. The social media has given voice to motley sections of our society and is not successfully deciding the agenda for national discussions and debates.
One does not need to stress a lot as fresh examples are scattered everywhere. Be it the Malda incident or police brutality at RSS headquarters in jhandewala, the credit should be given to none other than social media opinion makers and obviously the common user who forced attention of our mainstream media and politicians towards these incidents.
However, there is an ugly side of this ‘revolution’ of our generation. More often than not we end up consuming content which is biased, exaggerated and worst of all doctored. We, at Nishpaqsh, have utmost trust and belief in the value of non-partisanship and objectivity and thus we felt that it is our duty as citizens of this country to put light on such malicious practices and spread awareness among our readers.
The Frustrated Indian, a website run by group of some talented individuals who have impeccable writing skills and strong opinions, is engaging in some provocative acts since last few days which we observed. A social media platform which started as a facebook page and gradually gained popularity today has more than 6.5 lakhs likes and produces some quality content online.
However, it also has a history of posts that incite hatred towards a particular section that kindle equally hateful and violent responses from its readers.
One such post which came after India vs Bangladesh world T20 showed the heights of insensitivity. The post we are talking about is that of a photograph of Bangladesh cricket team supporters crying in frustration after it lost against India after having dominated the match throughout. The photograph had this caption “I am not a sadist but I like it when they cry. Cry cry you brats”. Now, there is nothing violent about the post but it does portray a sick mind-set of the admin.
This was an example for lack of maturity and responsibility. Now, there is a much more dangerous attribute to this second post by Frustrated Indian. After the unfortunate murder of Dr Pankaj Narang in Vikaspuri area of Delhi, this page tried to give the incident a communal and political angle and joined the league of internet trolls which blamed a particular community for the violence. Some absurd comparisons were made with brutal Dadri lynching incident too.
It crossed the limits in a manner that a relative/close associate of Dr Narang had to intervene and post on social media that they did not blame any particular community for it and were more hurt because his death was used by many for their political advantage. Read the full text:
Tushar Narang- The death in the family always hurts. What hurts more is when people use it as political agendas and pit two already volatile communities against each other. Hold responsible the people indulged in the act, not the whole community. Those who killed him (Dr Narang) weren’t out to kill Hindus, they were degraded scum who I am sure wouldn’t have given second thought about killing someone belonging to their own religion.
We have seen two ugly sided to this page and now the third one is where they spread manufactured/doctored content on the internet. In a recent post, they used a screenshot of Kanhaiya kumar’s tweet in which he is criticizing Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech. The screenshot shows Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya taking a pot shot at Kanhaiya by replying to his tweet. However, one thing to note is that the ‘blue tick’ which can be seen on Hardik’s original twitter profile is missing. Some more observation will show that on absolutely none or very seldom instances Pandya has tweeted using Hindi font.
The first reaction would be to think that it was probably a fake twitter profile which the admins misunderstood to be the real one. Further research will show that the username of the profile in screenshot is same as the original profile obviously sans the blue tick. This leaves no doubt that it is a photoshopped image.
Our motive is to educate the social media users and alert them about such malpractices. Stay safe from these vultures, stay unbiased. Jai Hind!
