Following the death by suicide of 42-year-old Kozhikode native Deepak U, who was accused via a video of sexually harassing a woman on a bus, a heated discussion is raging on the concept of ‘social media trial’.
Shimjitha Musthafa, who had uploaded a video of Deepak allegedly grazing her body with his elbow, now faces cyber attacks and legal charges of abetting suicide.
Initially accused of “follower farming”, her social media handles have been deleted. Reports say she is absconding, and may have fled the country.
As videos, posts and personal testimonies increasingly surface online before any formal inquiry, questions around justice, deterrence, defamation and due process are colliding in real time.
For many women, the mobile phone has become both a shield and megaphone. Recording instances of misbehaviour in public transport, they argue, acts as an immediate deterrent in spaces where silence has long been normalised.
Others, however, warn that once allegations enter the court of public opinion, reputations can be dismantled irreversibly often without verification or recourse. This can amount to character assasination.
Arathi P M, assistant professor at the School of Indian Legal Thought of MG University, cautions against assessing such incidents in isolation. Sexual violence in public spaces, she notes, is not an exception but a nasty reality that women have been enduring for generations.
Just because one or two cases appear dubious or unfair, it does not mean that the root problem does not exist.
“Women speaking out publicly today is not necessarily a choice made lightly. Often, turning to social media is not the first option, but one forced by systemic failure,” she says.
Every second woman one knows — be it a mother, sister, daughter or friend — would have nasty experiences to share. Some may have retaliated on the spot. But many would have silently suffered, let it pass. And not in all cases Good Samaritans rush to help, they would tell you.
Arathi points out that while laws in India are, on paper, empathetic to women, the problem lies in implementation. “It is not just about whether women have the space to file complaints, but about how they are treated when they approach the police, how seriously complaints are investigated, and how fast justice is delivered,” she adds.
“The judicial process is time-consuming, expensive, and far from victim-supportive. When systems fail to carry the spirit of the law, people look for shortcuts to justice.”
At the same time, Arathi warns of the slippery slope such shortcuts create. Social media trials, she says, bypass due process and allow decisions to be made instantaneously and emotionally. But what troubles her more is the recent trend of backlash.
“There is now a dangerous counter-narrative that trivialises sexual harassment itself, using such cases to whitewash the larger reality of violence against women,” she says.
“Addressing misuse should not become a way to silence women. What we need is a faster, stronger system and greater responsibility in how we speak online.”
Writer and gender studies researcher Aabha Muraleedharan states the phenomenon within a broader social breakdown. “Ours is a society that often evades accountability. When people don’t receive answers or justice through formal channels, they turn to social media — sometimes anonymously,” she says. “This shows how social media has become a public space for grievance.”
But public spaces, she adds, are also vulnerable to distortion. Algorithms feed users what they already believe, accelerating the formation of online mobs. “We rarely know the full reality. We see fragments that align with our interests, and we choose to believe them. Social media amplifies this tendency,” says Aabha.
Lawyer Sandhya Janardhanan Pillai notes that the power to shape public opinion has shifted in society. “Earlier, mainstream media largely influenced public discourse. Today, even the media follows the currents set by social media,” she says.
And in a patriarchal society, she observes, incidents are often isolated and exaggerated in ways that redirect accumulated anger — frequently towards women themselves. “Rather, the larger discussion should be on how to make public places and transport safer for women,” she says.
Sandhya, however, also underlines the legal risks of online vigilantism. “A media trial can cause serious damage to an individual. What amounts to defamation offline is defamation online too. But the impact is far greater in digital spaces, making legal consequences stronger.”
At the same time, Sandya acknowledges that electronic evidence, because it cannot easily be erased, can play a decisive role in court “when used responsibly”.
Sociologist Prasad R, assistant professor and coordinator at the University of Calicut, points to how social media prioritises visibility over verification, allowing partial narratives to harden into perceived truth. He describes this as a condition of “hyper-reality”, where emotionally framed accounts gain legitimacy through circulation rather than corroboration.
Referring to the Malayalam film ‘Vikrithi’, which explores the consequences of a false accusation triggered by a viral video, Prasad says that digital narratives often outlive facts. “Even the idea of a trial disappears. Because outrage itself becomes the product,” he says.
He underlines the need for media literacy to prevent irreversible harm. While acknowledging a woman’s right to speak about harassment in public spaces, Prasad argues that “ethical practices such as masking identities and pursuing legal remedies” can limit damage without silencing voices.
Psychiatrist Dr Arun B Nair reinforces the need for early intervention. “Teaching children how to respond to conflict, criticism and controversy should begin at the school level,” he says.
“At least the next generation should be conditioned in the right way on responding to problems legally and ethically. False blame destroys lives, but so does silence. Both resilience and restraint need to be part of our collective education.”