Potential and perils of WhatsApp

India has seen in recent years a spate of murders of innocent people, lynched by mobs. The number to date stands at 46, spread over the whole country and many have been seriously injured. Typically, mobs of hundreds of people, galvanized by false rumours, attack strangers believing them to be child molesters or abductors. Even people, who are trying to save these unfortunate victims from the blind fury of the crowd, have succumbed to such attacks. Ironically, in one instance, a government agent was killed while doing his duty of warning people of the dangers of believing in such reports.

There are also examples, perhaps less common and certainly less publicized, when social media has been used to catch suspected criminals and to find a missing child.

There is no prize for guessing the common thread, linking these incidents: It is WhatsApp.

Spreading false rumours by WhatsApp has become a convenient modus operandi of some social miscreants, used with devastating effect. But, the same medium, used judiciously, can quickly mobilize people in large numbers, for a social cause as well.

In one instance, when the police released video clips of a suspected child abductor and killer from CCTV footage, seeking public’s help in identifying the suspect, it was pursued with careful planning and deliberation. This was clearly a risky strategy, albeit a calculated one, as the video clips could have been easily misused, to the horror of some unfortunate innocent victim. But the gamble paid off, as multiple members of public identified the person from the CCTV footage and the criminal was successfully apprehended based on the information provided by the public.

So, WhatsApp does not deserve the uniformly negative publicity it has received recently. It’s the people who abuse it, who are the real villains. But what makes WhatsApp such a potent instrument in spreading false news?

The widespread reach of WhatsApp in India is well known. There are about 200 million users of WhatsApp, with over 13 billion messages daily in India. Many such users lack the sophistication in use of modern media and technology. They are not only gullible, believing in everything they read or see in the media but are unusually receptive to anything sensational. Add to this their readiness for direct action; it makes a dangerous cocktail, with tragic consequences. Sadly, it all leads to some innocent victim of circumstances bludgeoned to death.

Commonly, fake messages of child abductors, organ harvesters, or paedophiles, customized with locally specific details, operating in the area, get widely circulated attached to real videos, from a different source. When a stranger strays into the area, large mobs get quickly mobilized to target the stranger, wrongly identified as the character they had been looking for. Mostly, manual labourers have been the victims, but mentally disabled or transgender people also have been attacked. Even software engineers, academics, and businessmen
have not been spared. Usually their only “crime” is that they are strangers to the area.

Worryingly, WhatsApp enables such acts of violence to be filmed and shared across the country thus spreading the atmosphere of misinformation far and wide. Such clips are subsequently used to instigate further violence in entirely new situations.

Although abuse of social media is a global issue, the Indian scene has been particularly disturbing because of the blatant injustice and gory violence perpetrated in the name of rough and instant justice.

Of course, abuse of social media extends far beyond this. For example, social media has been blamed for distorting public opinion and manipulating election results. The “like” button on Facebook has been criticized for reducing the complexity of rich and varied human experience to the mechanical process of “buttonisation” of emotions.

But nothing can beat the gut-wrenching and merciless violence unleashed by false rumours feeding the frenzy of a mob through abuse of WhatsApp.

This begs the question, “what makes the Indian crowd so susceptible to jumping to action with unflinching violence?”

Fascination with violence and titillating news is a part of human nature. What makes the outcome so deadly is an uncritical acceptance of doctored news as facts. This process is facilitated by an underlying hatred of obviously heinous acts such as child abduction or rape.

But a less readily acknowledged factor in this equation is subconscious prejudice. The basis for such prejudice could be religion, nationality, language or much narrower sectarian considerations. In fact, any marginalized section of the society can become the target of such unwanted attention of fanatics. 

It would be sad to lose the benefits of social media, in general and of WhatsApp in particular, through increasing regulations and legislative sanctions. For a developing country, the phenomenal communicating power of social media makes it unequalled in terms of cost effectiveness. The number of WhatsApp user, estimated to be 200 million currently, is likely to grow exponentially in the coming years. So, the potential for transmitting positive messages through WhatsApp is almost limitless. But sadly, this has failed to capture the imagination of our policy makers yet.

Imagine the bonanza of benefits, if messages on Positive effects of physical exercise, Elements of healthy diet or information on new government initiatives could be circulated through WhatsApp with the same zeal. Of course, they would lack the titillating effect of negative messages. So, the key is to make such positive messages interesting, through eye-catching graphics or creative images.
There is no dearth of creative talent in India; so, harnessing the vast pool of skills to create impressive and attractive graphics, with humorous or witty contents, to convey socially relevant messages would go some way in realising the promise of WhatsApp in promoting mass communication.

n the wake of relentless rise of such murders, government has taken some small steps such as capping the size of WhatsApp groups and the number of people to whom a message can be forwarded. But such restrictions would also limit its potential for an effective mode of communication. The greatest strength of WhatsApp clearly lies in its reach into the most remote corners of the country. Sadly, its twin strengths of affordability and accessibility have become its Achilles heel!

As WhatsApp messages are private communication, with end to end encryption, legislation is by and large an ineffective method of curbing its abuses without draconian infringement of privacy. Limiting the size of WhatsApp group and the number of people to whom messages can be forwarded is likely to have a modest effect, if at all.

Educating the masses on the new technology to improve their media literacy is perhaps a more effective long-term strategy. This will make WhatsApp users more discerning in their judgment on the veracity of the messages.

A more potent weapon against abuses of WhatsApp would be boosting awareness of our prejudices underlying our uncritical acceptance of rumours as facts. This in turn can curb the mob mentality which fuels the frenzy of violence. Developing this internal restraint in individuals would collectively amount to an attitudinal change in the society. This would eventually provide a robust safeguard against the blind fury of mobs, whose behaviour can hardly be tempered by legislative sanctions nor deterred by fear of criminal prosecution.

It would be a grave loss to Indian society if social media like WhatsApp are stymied in their progress through excesses of their abuse. For, that would amount to throwing the baby with the bath water. And, to continue with the same analogy, this baby is precious, who needs to be nurtured into healthy adulthood and protection from being choked in its childhood.

Dr. Ajaya Upadhyaya is from Hertfordshire, England,  a Retired Consultant Psychiatrist from the British National Health Service and Honorary Senior Lecturer in University College, London.

December 2018.