Festival Scan on Social Media

Festival Scan on Social Media is a news report published in The Telegraph (India) on 26 August 2016. The article documents police efforts in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district to monitor social media for rumour-mongering and hate messages ahead of religious festivals, amidst heightened tensions following cow vigilante violence, with commentary from Sunil Abraham on the need to balance legitimate law enforcement against the risk of police overreach.

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Article Details

📰 Published in:: The Telegraph (India)
📅 Date:: 26 August 2016
📄 Type:: News Report
📰 Newspaper Link:: Read Online

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Authorities in a south Karnataka district have started keeping tighter watch on rumour-mongering and hate messages on social media platforms ahead of religious festivals.

Bangalore, Aug. 25: Authorities in a south Karnataka district have started keeping tighter watch on rumour-mongering and hate messages on social media platforms ahead of religious festivals.

Police in the communally sensitive Dakshina Kannada district have cautioned people not to start or circulate any hate message or rumours that could affect law and order.

"Anyone spreading rumours or hate messages can be charged under IPC Section 505 as we have all the technical capability to find out the origins of such messages," said Mangalore city police commissioner M. Chandra Sekhar.

This section is applied in the event of any statement or rumour with the intent to cause alarm among the public. "We do get several messages that later turn out to be a hoax," the officer said, citing instances of false rumours.

The officer exhorted citizens to alert the police the moment they get any such messages so that it could minimise or even prevent any damage, especially if the content is communally sensitive.

The district authorities have already ramped up police presence to prevent anything untoward in view of the activities of cow vigilantes who recently lynched a BJP worker for transporting calves in neighbouring Udupi district.

A source in the state police department hinted the measure could be replicated across the state, although other districts are not as communally sensitive like Dakshina Kannada.

The district — Mangalore is its administrative headquarters — had been in the thick of communal tension for decades.

Bhushan Gulabrao Borase, superintendent of police in charge of the Dakshina Kannada rural district, that is the rest of the district except Mangalore city, said keeping a watch on social media had become imperative. "Rural people may be using social media less frequently. But even then we need to be careful," he said.

Cow vigilantism by Hindutva groups is a major concern.

He said people could land in trouble for a seemingly harmless message if it causes some serious issue. "It is better not to start such messages. But it's also important not to forward if one receives them," said Borase.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of The Centre for Internet and Society, had a word of caution, although he appreciated the intent behind the police move.

"It's a reasonable approach if they stick to the scope of the law (Section 505). The problem is only if police overstep their limits, like we have seen on several occasions."

But he agreed there was a need to keep an eye on what goes on in social media since many users abuse messaging platforms like WhatsApp.

"What we don't want is a Nazi Germany where the wife is asked to spy on her husband and the son on the father. But we also don't want the opposite when citizens just ignore everything," he said, asserting that it was the duty of civil society to inform the police if they found anything dangerous being circulated.

Context and Background

This report emerged during a period of heightened communal tensions in Karnataka’s coastal districts, particularly following the lynching of a BJP worker by cow vigilantes in Udupi for allegedly transporting calves. Dakshina Kannada district, with its administrative headquarters in Mangalore, had long been a flashpoint for communal violence, making police anxieties about social media’s role in amplifying tensions particularly acute ahead of religious festivals.

The police response—invoking IPC Section 505 against rumour-mongering and threatening technical surveillance capabilities—represented an increasingly common approach to managing online speech perceived as threatening public order. Commissioner Chandra Sekhar’s assertion that authorities possessed “all the technical capability” to trace message origins was intended as deterrence, though the actual extent and legality of such surveillance capabilities remained unclear.

Sunil Abraham’s measured response captured civil liberties advocates’ persistent dilemma with such measures. His conditional endorsement—”reasonable approach if they stick to the scope of the law”—acknowledged legitimate concerns about WhatsApp-driven rumours that had indeed sparked violence in various Indian contexts. However, his caveat about police overstepping limits referenced a well-documented pattern where vague provisions like Section 505 were applied beyond their legitimate scope to silence dissent or criticism.

Abraham’s invocation of “Nazi Germany” surveillance analogies, whilst perhaps rhetorical, highlighted genuine concerns about normalising citizen informant systems. The distinction he drew—between organised state surveillance compelling citizens to spy on family members versus voluntary reporting of genuinely dangerous content—attempted to articulate where civil society responsibility ended and state overreach began. This boundary remained contested, particularly given instances where political authorities weaponised such reporting mechanisms against opponents under the guise of maintaining public order.

The timing was significant. This occurred two years before WhatsApp-fuelled mob lynchings would claim dozens of lives across India, prompting the platform to implement message forwarding restrictions. It also preceded the 2018 Shreya Singhal judgment’s full implementation, which struck down Section 66A but left other speech restrictions like Section 505 intact. Police monitoring of social media ahead of festivals would become increasingly routine, raising persistent questions about proportionality, oversight, and the potential for such surveillance to chill legitimate expression rather than merely preventing violence.