Dr Praveen
“When reason fails, the devil helps” wrote Dostoevsky.
Whenever all the reasons to justify foolish policies fail, when reason exposes the fascistic and fanatic ideology of the Hindutva and insurmountable opposition builds, the BJP/RSS rely upon their devils in social media as trolls, goons and moderation mafias. To thwart any voice that is sane, to oppose and nullify them by means which are base and mean.
These troll goons are either employed by the BJP/RSS or volunteers, and they are prevalent in all platforms of social media. They are not just random users, they operate systematically in groups to harass and jibe the persons expressing the dissent against the Modi government or the Hindutva ideology. The targets of trolls are politicians, journalists, celebrities, social activities, anyone who express their opinions and expose the fallacies of Modi Government.
Troll Goons
The trolls are deployed when the BJP/RSS can’t defend themselves against attacks on their irrational policies and fascistic activities.
They abuse their targets by attacking them personally, verbally hurling expletives, abusing their families and questioning their patriotism. If it’s a woman, her chastity is put to question publicly and sexual innuendos are passed around.
An insight into this troll goons is given by a former troll Sadhvi Khosla, in her testimony to The Guardian.
A recent example was the trolling of Ms. Jothimani a prominent leader of Congress party, a writer and a social activist in Tamilnadu by the troll goons of BJP/RSS demonstrating how low these trolls in the social media stoop to suppress a dissenting opinion against Modi government or their hindutva ideology.
After Ms Jothimani posted a rational question regarding the demonetisation policy of the Modi government, she was targeted.
Her whatsapp number was added to whatsapp groups in which these goons were admin. She was jibed with expletives, sexual innuendos and verbal abuses questioning her chastity. Such is the standard abetted by the BJP/RSS in social media.
When she made this issue public by posting screenshots of her whatsapp texts showing the sexual slurs hurled at her by these troll goons. The posts were removed by the moderation committee of Facebook India citing controversial and explicit content. Even her Facebook account remains blocked.
Rather than penalising the offenders, the Facebook moderation panel tries to nullify and annihilate voices of dissent against Modi government or RSS/BJP. It is very much conspicuous from their actions targeting only the victims of these troll goons to thwart their opinions, perspectives which are opposed to the hindutva ideology. The moderation panel across all social media platforms (Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, quotation) are occupied by the mercenaries of the BJP/RSS, acting like a mafia.
Moderation Mafia
The moderation panel decides which controversial post should be removed or which account should be blocked, considering the terms of offences as per the Facebook guidelines.
If explicit verbal content is the reason for removing Ms. Jothimani Sennimalai post, why haven’t they removed Kalyanaraman’s post which questions the chastity of Ms. Jothimani and third rate allegations on prominent leaders of congress including Mr. Rahul Gandhi.
In another instance a social activist, posted a video on Facebook containing a conversation of the activist with children of the Irula tribes, where he asks the children why they were not in school and talks of the importance of education to them.
This video was removed by the Facebook moderators citing the reason that it has nudity and shows India in a bad light to the world.
If nudity of a child is offensive, why not the naked photos or videos of nude aghoris aren’t banned from Facebook?
It is a truth and fact that irula children are being denied education. If posting such a message across the social media is condemned and removed. Only convenient truths are allowed and bitter truths are masked or deleted from Facebook platform by these moderators.
When a critical opinion on the casteist hindutva ideologies and Hinduism is posted, the user who posted these critical opinions are repeatedly harassed by questioning the credibility of their Facebook ids, asking proof of their identity and even blocking the account deeming it is a bogus account.
Suppressing the voices of the oppressed communities and religious minorities in the social media platforms is the only role of these BJP/RSS mercenaries who occupy the role of panel moderators and act as mafias.
The casteist slurs are allowed to go scot-free and they conveniently turn a blind eye or ignore to it. They jump into action only when the victims voice their opinion or retaliate, only then they jump out of the oblivion, and block the victims of caste abuse citing Facebook violation.
Facebook India is bound by the constitution of India, anyone who violates the PCR act can be punished by the law.
Still the moderation panel conveniently allows the casteist slurs to thrive.
As racial slurs are strictly banned in Facebook, strong clauses and terms should be formulated condemning casteist slurs and banning the use of casteist slurs against the Scheduled Castes as Facebook is bound by the PCR act of Indian constitution can be punished by the law.
Facebook Inc. executives should look into this and remove the moderators of Facebook India who are biased and abet the casteist slurs against the oppressed people who use Facebook.
Else it would mean that Facebook abets casteism a worst form of discrimination than racism on its platform to thrive and is patronizing it.
Digital Fascism
These troll goons and the biased moderators are hard core hindutva ideologists, masterminded and patronized by the BJP/RSS with the motive to nullify and annihilate the voices of liberals, religious minorities and the oppressed against the fascistic BJP/RSS.
The RSS and the hindutva ideologists are the people who killed rationalists Kalburgi, Dabholkar and Pansare for exposing the irrationality of the hindutva and exposing its vicious fangs of bigotry and fascism in a way even the lay people could understand.
Their act of stifling the rational and reasonable voices of the liberals cannot be taken just as cyber bullying thing, it would be too naive,
The Facebook Inc. executives should look into the infiltration of moderation panel by these kind of bigots with ulterior motives of just stifling the voices of the liberals.
Else it would imply that the Facebook in India would remain as a platform upholding hindutva ideology, abetting casteist slurs and tolerant towards abusers.
If the Facebook executives fail to revamp this moderation panel of Facebook India, exodus of liberals and the marginalized communities in India from Facebook forming a platform of their own is not too far.
Moderation mafia is not restricted only to Facebook, they’re all across social media platforms such as Twitter, whatsapp, quora etc.
~~~
Dr. Praveen works as a medical officer in the Department of Public Health, Government of Tamil Nadu.
