THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the police social media monitoring team has flagged 36 personal and group accounts for circulating malicious content depicting various political parties and their leaders in poor light and directed social media houses to take down the offensive content.
The social media monitoring related to the Lok Sabha polls was commenced by the cyber wing after the Election Commission issued a notification for the polls on March 20.
Police sources said they have managed to get the offensive contents removed in 13 cases. In as many as five cases, the contents were removed by the social media platforms on the request of the police, while in the rest of the cases, the uploaders themselves purged the contents after being warned of legal action by the cops.
Most of the contents flagged as offensive by the monitoring team were trolls. Those trolls were largely political in nature and were uploaded onto the cyberspace by social media groups as well as individuals.
The social media monitoring team decided to keep a close watch on the election campaigning in cyber space following the Election Commission directive. This is the first time social media platforms were scrutinised by law enforcement agencies to curb the spread of toxic and inflammable content.
“All 36 instances were noticed by us in the past six days alone. We are expecting a rise in malicious use of social media platforms as the campaign progresses,” said a police source.
According to the source, the team suo motu took note of the offensive content that was mostly circulated via Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
“Since the campaign is in the early stages, the slander and disinformation campaign via social media is yet to pick up pace. The content that we found offensive was mostly trolls, where the faces of the political leaders were juxtaposed with the images of comedians and movie actors. Texts that could offend people also accompanied them,” the source said.
The social media monitoring cell comprises about 86 officers, who closely watch the space and initiate legal action against the offenders. The accounts that upload and circulate offensive content were identified and the next step is to write to the social media firms to take them down. This is a tiresome task as the nodal officers of those firms often differ with the police over the nature of the content and refuse to remove them.
86 police officers to monitor social media
The social media monitoring cell comprises about 86 officers, who closely watch the space and initiate legal action against the offenders. The accounts that upload and circulate offensive content were identified and the next step is to write to the social media firms to take them down