India: Google engineer latest victim of mob lynchings fueled by WhatsApp rumors

https://www.dw.com/en/india-google-engineer-latest-victim-of-mob-lynchings-fueled-by-whatsapp-rumors/a-44679902

by shreyanshd • 8 years ago

71 64 8 years ago

gaius• 8 years ago

WhatsApp needs to recognize India offers a huge market for them. They are making good money out of India operations," Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said earlier this month. "Therefore they must focus on the security related aspects of people of India."

What is WhatsApp’s monetisation strategy in India? Is it susceptible to regulation or is the government powerless in these situations?

joeyspn• 8 years ago

The solutions provided seem quite poor. What whatsapp needs is a reporting button for hoaxes and disturbing content…

ryanlol3• 8 years ago

When has reporting ever been an effective means of keeping content off social media?

mcny2• 8 years ago

And do what, exactly? What do you do once a user reports me as relaying fake news? Ban me?

I strongly disagree. I am responsible for my actions. If I kill someone, I can’t say “well, I thought this man ate beef”.

This is a law and order problem and not something we can fix from outside India.

inapis4• 8 years ago

This is a law and order problem and not something we can fix from outside India.

These lynchings are not solely a law and order problems. Indian law enforcement definitely has issues with maintaining peace and harmony but WhatsApp has considerably added to the problem. A lot of these lynchings have taken place within minutes. Before WhatsApp, it usually took a good amount of time to collect a group and target someone but these mobs assemble with 10-15 minutes, do the deed and disperse mere minutes before the police arrives.

India needs legal and administrative reforms to deal with these issues but WhatsApp can definitely put the brakes on such small mobs by merely rate limiting the group texts. At the very least, it will give the police some more time to respond.

tomp4• 8 years ago

This reminds me of the “Foxconn suicides” story... sure the absolute numbers were high, but Foxconn has like a million employees, so the suicide rate was actually completely “normal”.

25 people have been killed since May

So 150 people per year, or 0.000015% of India’s population. Sure, it’s a problem, but I’m pretty sure there are bigger problems that are easier to solve (rape and acid attacks come to mind).

jopsen2• 8 years ago

Similarly, one could ask if this is something new? Or have WhatsApp merely replaced another media platform.

fooker2• 8 years ago

It has replaced SMS. These issues have existed for a while.

inapis4• 8 years ago

These issues have existed for a while. WhatsApp, unfortunately, accelerated the pace. Messaging a person or a group of persons earlier was expensive and required a lot of effort (selecting individual people to message and each message had a price) and there was no guarantee of message delivery or even timely delivery. WhatsApp made it free and almost instantaneous to inform a much larger set of people reliably.

PunchTornado• 8 years ago

there are always bigger problem to solve. your point? I really don't get how "bigger problem to solve" is ever a valid argument.

tomp4• 8 years ago

Effort/time is limited so you have to prioritise what problems to solve.

oscardelben• 8 years ago

According to the article, it's 25 people having being killed since the beginning of the year because of misinformation spread through whatsapp. It seems like it should be a big deal for the company.

dnomad• 8 years ago

So 150 people per year, or 0.000015% of India’s population.

This is an enormous and completely baseless leap. Why would you ever assume that the rate of killings is constant? What makes you think these killings aren't part of a rapidly growing phenomenon of social-media driven violence?

tomp4• 8 years ago

Not everything is a trend/signal.

fooker2• 8 years ago

What is rapidly growing is the rate of these events which are reported.

walshemj• 8 years ago

This is a lynching for flips sake this is a crime several orders of magnitude greater than a crime of passion. presumably you would have told Lady Day that singing strange fruit isn't important as well not that many negros got lynched that year.

Also it looks like a lot of these lynching's are sectarian which is a threat to the good order of the state.

viraptor2• 8 years ago

I couldn't find more historic data points, but extrapolating from 25 since May to 150 per year is a bad approach. There's a difference between: it's been always happening, and this is the most recent summary -vs- April 0, May 1, June 4, July 20.

tomp4• 8 years ago

What would be a better approach, inabsence of other data points?

jonhendry18• 8 years ago

A farmer in India commits suicide about every 30 minutes.

But that's still a tiny fraction of India's population.

India's population is so big any problem short of a rampaging plague epidemic can be dismissed with that logic.

SuddsMcDuff• 8 years ago

Surely the real problem here is that there are a great many people who are both gullible and prone to violence.

jopsen2• 8 years ago

Missing the rule of law is often a good driver for vigilantism.

If people feel criminals aren't prosecuted, they are more likely to take matters into their own hands.

wheresvic12• 8 years ago

This pretty much highlights how important education is and the effort that needs to go toward educating the poor in India.

The coming wave of technology and tools is only going to exacerbate these problems further.

One small thing that whatsapp could potentially do is to make it a little bit harder to forward messages to everyone. force people to wait a couple of seconds before adding another person.

wheresvic12• 8 years ago

On second thought - let's get rid of this forwarding feature altogether.

Personally, I've only ever received jokes an memes that were forwarded...

rohit2412• 8 years ago

People will only copy and paste. You're just making it inconvenient

shreyanshd• 8 years ago

Indian here. Based on my observations, in India, the ‘whatsapp group’ feature has become a medium for spreading fake news, political propaganda, religious propaganda, pornography and other such activities that have a negative impact at a massive scale. Whatsapp is the most prominent messaging service in India, and though the ‘groups’ feature has many positive usecases, its mainly used for influencing the (huge) illiterate population of the country. IMO, Whatsapp should step in, and temporarily turn off the groups feature in India ASAP, atleast until the deaths due to such fake news have stopped completely.

ryanlol3• 8 years ago

has become a medium for spreading fake news, political propaganda, religious propaganda, pornography and other such activities that have a negative impact at a massive scale

One of these is not like the others.

calvinbhai5• 8 years ago

Indian here.

"until deaths due to fake news have stopped completely" will/should never happen.

You are asking for censorship by state. Not sure how/why anyone would ask for such a measure, instead of asking the responsible state govts in India to improve the Law and Order situation.

When there's is a hint of crime or a need for medical attention, in the US, first thing a person thinks of is calling 911.

In India, first thing a person thinks of is, how he/she can address the situation, because <insert emergency service here> will never reach on time nor be of any help.

Most riots in India flame up due to false news. Whatsapp is just a medium that is super efficient in spreading such false news.

Dont shoot the Messenger/Whatsapp etc. Ask for better reforms!

Chickenosaurus2• 8 years ago

It's great WhatsApp took steps to prevent the spread of false information but that isn't the root of the problem. The root of the problem is of a cultural nature.

At present there is no law that criminalises mob killings. For that reason, the perpetrators are often not prosecuted by the police. A law that makes clear mob killings are unacceptable would go a long way in changing the cultural stance towards such acts.

Thankfully, the Manav Suraksha Kanoon (law to protect humans) could close this legal gap soon.

ryanlol3• 8 years ago

At present there is no law that criminalises mob killings

Surely you're joking?

king_nothing2• 8 years ago

You’re talking about India: where slavery is alive and well, college girls are locked in at night and rape/domestic violence goes virtually unpunished, with police as “quality” as those in Afghanistan. VICE did a piece on this. Also, sectarian violence there is normal.

Chickenosaurus2• 8 years ago

Legal ground for the prosecution of individuals who participated in mob lynchings exists but is rather weak at the moment. The source for the above statements is https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/its-time-to-enact-an-a...

srean5• 8 years ago

Add to that the fact that the higher echelons of the current government turns a blind eye to lynching and hate crime, whereas at the grassroots they encourage such lynchings. Lynching to death over diet preferences (beef) is a very recent phenomena emboldened by the implicit promise by the government that there will be no consequences.

Recently the chief minister of the state of Tripura reacted to a reporter's questions on lynching by stating that there is a "wave of happiness" going on an that this is the government of the people and "people will act" and one should just embrace it. Of course later there was the usual run of the mill back tracking that he was misquoted and that he was quoted out of context -- the usual PR drill.

Its only after some repeated instances that go on for months there will be a token "we are against this" soundbyte, but just that -- a soundbyte wink wink.

sumedh3• 8 years ago

For that reason, the perpetrators are often not prosecuted by the police.

You also have to talk about the other side, in most of the cases the Police dont take any action if a local thug has the support of some big politician or bribes the police.

Lynching is the only solution people are left with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akku_Yadav

srean5• 8 years ago

To a certain extent you are right. If the only way to get at some semblance of justice is by street violence, that is what you will get. This is essentially the failure of governance, a government that is selectively absent because it suits them that way.

That said, the Indian populace needs to grow up and not behave like insolent children throwing a tantrum. It should not be the job of the media companies to control what they read or don't. The more one acts towards them like protective parents shielding there eyes and ears, the more they will continue to act like tantrum throwing children -- they have nothing to lose that way, only to gain.

Catch a few, and make them public examples by throwing the book at them, they will fall in line -- but no the government will not do that because they have vested interests.

calvinbhai5• 8 years ago

Lack of law enforcement, or even the capability to enforce the basic laws, leads to this lynching behavior.

India can bring in N number of laws, but without addressing enforcement, all it helps is to give a false sense of achievement to activists asking for such laws.

Also, saying "Google Engineer" and "India" really distorts what actually led to this lynching since Law and Order is the responsibility of the State Govt, and the location where this happened, is not really urban. (Police in rural areas are not equipped to handle situations like this).

I'd rather not discuss it on HN, since my knowledge of this incident is based on the front page headline on Times of India, but the gist of it is one of those 3 who was lynched, forcefully offered a chocolate/candy to a girl. Girl started crying. Now, any male stranger offering chocolates to kids forcefully, is suspicious anywhere in the world isn't it? So villagers took law into their own hands.

The OP news report on dw.com seems to be distorting the main issue here and trying to blame the central govt of India, for an issue that is purely under the jurisdiction of the state govt of Karnataka (which is in fact the opposition party in the center).

ap3• 8 years ago

At present there is no law that criminalises mob killings

No law against murder?

king_nothing2• 8 years ago

There is an uncomfortable fact: many people only notice harm when there’s a victim similar to them involved, but are typically oblivious or unconcerned with the troubles not in their purview: impetus for mass-migration to Europe, genocides (ie Hutus & Tutsis), East Timor, PNG, nationless people (ie Rohingya, Kurds, Uyghurs, Palestinians, Catalans), terrorism in Africa and neglect/poisoning of poor people in rural areas.

fleetingmoments• 8 years ago

Why can't these sites implement a 'are you sure?' check before letting users repost fake news? Do a lookup on Snopes or similar and provide that along with information that informs the user of legal consequences of participating in the sharing of false information if harm results from it.

leke• 8 years ago

Perhaps WhatsApp should do some PSAs, via the app itself, to places that seem to be affected by this problem. They could be colour prioritised for seriousness.

anuraj2• 8 years ago

Ever since Narendra Modi came to power - India has become Lynchistan. The Hindu supremacist leader and his organisation RSS that stands for ‘Cultural Nationalism’ is imposing ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’ - a monoculture which advocates ‘One Nation, One Language, One Religion’ for a country as diverse as India. The hate that is unleashed is consuming democracy slowly but surely. Future is indeed bleak for India.

Many Hindutva Organisations affiliated to RSS raise large amount of money from US tech sector each year. I request everybody to put pressure on their companies and colleagues not to donate money to racist and supremacist organisations.

calvinbhai5• 8 years ago

This happened in the state of Karnataka, ruled by Congress, which is the opposition in the center.

So whoever is blaming Modi for this crime, has no idea how the Indian political system is structured, nor do they know how the Law and Order is the responsibility of the state, or despite knowing all that they are either feigning ignorance or spreading false propaganda.

Such lynchings have happened in India across states ruled by different political parties.

If you really want to find a solution to this problem, tone down your politics based hatred (at least on HN), and hold the respective state govts responsible for such law and order issues.

anuraj2• 8 years ago

Cow lynchings, political lynchings, WhatsApp lynchings - many have direct connection with Hindutva organisations. Recently we had an RSS minister openly felicitating convicts of a cow lynching. That is the state of democracy in India. State governments are virtually powerless under Modi’s Raj.

Here is an up to date chronology of lynchings under Modi https://www.thequint.com/quintlab/lynching-in-india/

Let us stand firm against hatred in the name of religion and race. Stand for democracy - stand against authoritarianism.

throwaway_009• 8 years ago

Just wanted to present an observation that Deutsche Welle (DW) has an extremely biased opinion of India and presents only the bad and sensationalized articles about things in India. As an Indian living in Germany, I have seen firsthand how misrepresented India is in foreign publications.

Although, I don't doubt the article, I would suggest you take the article with a pinch of salt. Yes, there are problems in some parts in India, but the foreign media portray it like people are running around killing and raping people, which is definitely not the case.

pgeorgi• 8 years ago

"Like yesterday nothing extraordinary happened in 99% of India today" isn't newsworthy though.

But maybe DW should emphasize the local aspect of these reports, like the foreign office does: https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/aussenpolitik/laender/ind... Germans aren't used to a single country being that vast and diverse.

paganel• 8 years ago

A very similar thing happened in Bucharest a couple of weeks ago: a bunch of people from a “poor” neighborhood attacked an ambulance-looking vehicle which was being used by a 50-year old lady writer to promote books and reading among the kids living in those poor neighborhoods. The mass hysteria reguarding said lady was also spread through social media (FB and WhatsApp) and what’s even more disconcerting is that even after the police cleared everything up and explained the situation (thankfully the lady escaped with only some bruises) there were still people commenting on said lady writer’s FB page accusing her of being a child-kidnapper.

I’m afraid democracy and the idea of universal vote will start to be influenced more and more by these people, no matter how much some other people will try to “regulate” some communication channels.

sifar2• 8 years ago

I have been thinking about this a bit. [0] covers it in more detail at the local level with a map of the places it has happened. This is something which has been happening in India and is not limited to a particular state. There was a recent article about how the cops discovered one of the videos responsible for lynching to be fake and taken out of context of a NGOs promotional video.

Makes me wonder the motives of persons involved - what do they gain by inciting this violence. These are not your vote banks. But considering its pan-India nature, this activity is somehow organized.

This is not a law and order problem. In the sense that it is beyond that. Those who say it do not understand the scale of mobs in India. You cannot police this, especially in places where this is occurring. The police have been helpless, even threatened.

The real problem is indeed the people of India. WhatsApp is just a medium - though it makes it very convenient. I would even say this outcome of whatsApp usage is inevitable in a country like India where you will find abundant people ready to go berserk and people who want to exploit it for no apparent reason.

Frequent reading about this really makes me loose faith in humanity. I don't know how to change a billion people.

[0] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/murderous-mob-lynchi...

sifar2• 8 years ago

WhatsApp/Social Media have just begun to realize the nature of the beast they have unleashed. Like the US fake news uproar. However adding technical fixes to the way we communicate via Social Media is like applying band-aid & treating the symptoms. We as individuals and society need to realize that the cognitive and social costs of these communication mediums are increasingly outweighing the benefits.

sorokod• 8 years ago

Sounds like the US practise of swatting transplanted to India

calvinbhai5• 8 years ago

I'm sure Whatsapp has access to what encrypted message was sent by who, to whom.

Simple would be to crowdsource reporting a post as "incendiary or fake" in a group and it wont be visible to the rest of the users in the group. or hide the message and show only after informing the reader that the message may be fake, as reported by others in the group.

Twitter does a better job than facebook in this matter. And I thought FB was way ahead with all the buzzwords like AI, ML, Neural Networks. If FB cannot add this simple feature to Whatsapp, or something similar to this, not sure it'll manage to help the lynching situation in India and world over.

thisisit• 8 years ago

I got curious about the role of Whatsapp in this whole incident and googled the actual incident:

https://in.news.yahoo.com/google-engineer-beaten-death-over-...

From this story it looks like Whatsapp was only used as a communication medium and not really the rumor mongering one. While I can understand some of the examples given the linked dw.com article, I don't see what could Whatsapp do in such cases? Should they block every offensive message?

So, for me this story sounds more like a low quality effort on part of the media. Once upon a time there used to be similar stories about how SMSes were being used for rumor mongering and spreading propaganda. And the major issue has always been ignored - education.

RichardCA• 8 years ago

This seems to be a decent accounting.

http://www.freepressjournal.in/india/karnataka-google-techie...

known• 8 years ago

Casteism is worse than Racism;

Casteism = Racism + Slavery

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325502/Map-shows-wo...

India: Google engineer latest victim of mob lynchings fueled by WhatsApp rumors

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