Pune: While the benefits and drawbacks of social media has constantly been debated, the murder of 18-year-old Shreenath Khese, on Tuesday morning by another youth in Khed taluka of Pune, who had shared morphed images of Khese’s sister on a social media platform, has yet again highlighted the need to practice Social Media Etiquette (SME). As per Pune rural police, Khese was allegedly murdered by his paternal cousin, who wanted to marry his sister.
In an earlier incident, 16-year-old Aniket Shinde was murdered in February in Chakan by eight persons after a Whatsapp status update led to a dispute between Shinde and the accused.
Speaking about the issue of correct way to use social media platforms, cyber expert Anil Raj of Cybervault Securities System said that as many people are linked to social media, any message shared on social media reaches to millions of people in an instant. “In such cases, if something offensive is shared about a person on social media, it leads to instant public humiliation, which can further trigger violence. Similarly, in past few years, people are getting attracted towards ‘viral’ content on social media platform. This tendency of making the content ‘viral’ or consumption of ‘viral’ messages on social media can be damaging. We have seen in many instances that when offensive images of a girl is shared by people multiple times, it brings humiliation on a larger scale, which causes huge damage,” added Raj.
The cyber expert highlighted that the use of internet and mobile phones has increased at such a rapid rate that it causes immediate dissemination of messages. “People using internet should be aware of all social media etiquette,” added Raj.
Advocate Gaurav Jachak, who deals in cases of cyber crime, said that he has handled many such cases of violence triggered through social media. “There are two kinds of people involved in sharing objectionable content on social media. One may do it intentionally, whose agenda is to create ruckus and violence, and the other may do it unintentionally, which may lead to violence. The major problem we are facing before sharing photos or expressing our opinions on social media is that we are not thinking of its repercussions. We also need to change thought process of people using social media so that we don’t have to face such issues of violence,” added Jachak.
Reacting to the murder incident of Khed taluka, Shruti Tambe, head of Department of Sociology at Savitribai Phule Pune University, said, “We live in a society where we accept that the photos or images of a woman is owned by men and it is ok to fight over it. There has been several such incidents in past of violence over owning a woman.”
