Actor Sara Ali Khan was trolled for her visit to the Kedarnath temple by cyber bullies as soon as she shared photos of the trip on Instagram. The actor visited the temple with her friend and colleague actor Janhvi Kapoor, and shared many photos of the two at the temple and around. In one they were seen with forests anointed as done traditionally after seeking blessings at the shrine.

Sarah, who hails from a multi religious family, was now trolled for visiting a Hindu temple even though she has both Hindu and Muslim parents. Interestingly, the trolls bore both, Muslim and Hindu names, and went at Khan with all kinds of vile comments. Sara Ali Khan had captioned the photos “Back to where it all began #jaibholenath#grateful #blessed”, a throwback to her movie Kedarnath that put her on the Bollywood map.  

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Sara Ali Khan (@saraalikhan95)

She had earlier been trolled after she posted birthday greetings for Home Minister Amit Shah on October 22. 

Warmest birthday wishes and regards to the Hon’ble Union Home Minister @AmitShah ji.

— Sara Ali Khan (@SaraAliKhan) October 22, 2021

Now, she was trolled and reminded that “You are a Muslim, so what are you doing, Astagfirullah (sic)” another wrote, “Laanat hai tum jaise musalmano pee…awww tm muslim ho bh nh sakte tm jase log (sic).”

And then there was a third category of right-wing handles who stated that the actor was “embracing her Hindu roots”.

THOSE LIBERALS WHO WERE OUTRAGED AT RAPE THREATS ((RIGHTLY SO)) ARE SILENT AS ISLAMISTS BRUTALLY ATTACK SARA ALI KHAN

Merely because she visited Kedarnath & wished @AmitShah ji on his birthday

YEH GIRA INKA DOUBLE STANDARDS AUR TOLERANCE KA BURKHA https://t.co/qLDiSEdNg6

— Shehzad Jai Hind (@Shehzad_Ind) November 3, 2021

Why aren’t we talking about the abuses that Sara Ali Khan has been facing for embracing her Hindu roots?

— Rashmi Samant (@RashmiDVS) November 3, 2021

Vicious Attacks by Islamists on Sara Ali Khan for visiting Kedarnath and Farhan Akhtar for celebrating Diwali. Still no outrage by Left Liberals because Propaganda Ooncha Rahe Hamara!

— Monica (@TrulyMonica) November 3, 2021

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Hate Watch: Bajrang Dal threats force Munawar Faruqui to cancel shows in Mumbai
Hate Watch: Hindutva group raises slogans outside Muslim-owned shop in Gujarat

The post Hate Watch: Actor Sara Ali Khan trolled for visit Kedarnath temple appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Delhi Police have arrested a 48-year-old cleric for allegedly raping a minor girl inside a mosque in Northeast Delhi. He was arrested on Monday morning from Loni in Ghaziabad where he lived, stated news reports. He was then produced in a city court and sent to 14-day judicial custody.

The 12-year-old girl told her parents that she was sexually attacked when she went to fetch water at the mosque on Sunday evening. Her parents filed a police complaint the same night, and a case was subsequently registered and the girl was counselled and taken for a medical examination, police told media-persons. According to news reports the girl’s parents, in their police complaint, have alleged that their “daughter had gone to the mosque to fetch water when she was allegedly raped by the cleric”. Police have booked the accused under section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. 

However, the heinous crime has given trolls a way to earn their day’s wages. Thousands have commented on the rape, amplifying that it allegedly took place in a mosque, and that the accused is a Muslim cleric. Ignoring the fact that the accused has been arrested by Delhi Police hours after the complaint was filed, and has already been sent to judicial custody, trolls are hard at work making a communal issue and targeting those who speak up. Actor Swara Bhaskar, has been targeted once again. 

Ghaziabad minor raped in a mosque.
Kathua minor gangraped in a temple.
Both are heinous crimes. All perpetrators belonging to each religion are monsters who deserve harshest punishment.
In only one case sitting MLAs of ruling party take out marches IN SUPPORT of rapists.. 1/n

— Swara Bhasker (@ReallySwara) June 2, 2021

According to the right wing trolls, citizens who had raised their voices after the Kathua rape case was reported are not doing so in this case where the accused is a Muslim, and the scene of the alleged crime is a mosque. The right wing is also offended that the media is not amplifying that the rape reported on June 1 was allegedly commited inside a Mosque. They are comparing it to the kidnap, rape an murder of the child in a Temple at Kathua in 2018. 

In the horrific Kathua rape case, it was the likes of Choudhary Lal Singh who took part in the Hindu Ekta Manch march supporting the perpetrators in the Kathua rape and murder case. He and others were a part of the Hindu Ekta Manch campaign to free the accused arrested for the gang-rape of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua. On June 10, 2019, a special Pathankot Court had pronounced its verdict, holding six people guilty that included Sanji Ram, the caretaker of the temple where the crime took place and his friend Parvesh Kumar. Four police personnel: Special Police Officer Deepak Khajuria, Sub inspector Anand Dutta, Head Constable Tilak Raj and Special Officer Surender Verma were also found guilty in the case. The main accused in the case Sanji Ram, his friend Parvesh Kumar and a special police officer Deepak Khajuria were sentenced to life imprisonment for offences under Sections 302 (murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code. The three police men – Special Police Officer Surender Verma, Sub Inspector Anand Dutta and Head Constable Tilak Raj – who had allegedly taken Rs 4 lakh as bribe from Sanji Ram for sabotaging the case were sentenced to five years imprisonment for destruction of evidence and fined Rupees 25,000/- (rupees twenty five thousand only)

However, for the right wing trolls the two cases are the same, and the only issue is the religious identity of the accused, and not justice for the rape survivor and victim

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Will Sangita Sengar talk about BJP’s beti bachao slogan when campaigning in UP? 

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While India’s farmers have reached a major milestone in their months long struggle against the passing of the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020 — by Parliament in the Monsoon session, right wing affiliated trolls have been busy vilifying them. 

The protesting farmers are demanding that the laws be repealed, and replaced with a new Act that ensures a Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all agriculture produce in the country. They have so far faced the physical might of the states, which have ordered massive police and paramilitary deployment across all border areas of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and all roads leading to the national capital are now under surveillance.

Images of farmers being hit with lathis, water cannons, being met with razor wire barricades and marches by paramilitary forces seem to have inspired the self declared ‘nationalist’ right wing affiliated online influences to begin trolling. They have begun spinning fake news theories in the same way they did when the Shaheen Bagh protests were underway in December 2019. This time too they have begun with abusing the eldery women farmers who were seen marching alongside the men. 

Leading this online onslaught was actor Kangana Ranaut, who shared fake news that the old Punjabi woman farmer (seen in a month old photo) was Bilquis Daadi of Shaheen Bagh. For Ranaut, all old women look alike. And all old women who wear dupattas are Muslim, a community she has no love lost for. Her myopia and lack of information also lead her to believe and amplify the fake news that these women protestors were available for ‘hire’. Similar fake news of ‘pain protesters’ had been floated by the right wing during the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh. After thousands called out her fake news laden tweet, the actor was forced to delete the tweet. However many took screenshots and fact-checked Ranaut. 

Ranaut’s fake news was shut down thousands of times.

What a fall @KanganaTeam!
Shame on u for amplifying this baseless & false claim by trolls.
Have some respect for old dadis fighting for their rights.
Why do u think both are same. Also, So what if both are same? Not everyone award winner is available for money. #FarmerProtest pic.twitter.com/UrVHfPrDbx

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) November 28, 2020

She has now deleted her tweet. But here is Archive link https://t.co/UVZSoZEB2l

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) November 28, 2020

Also, Dadi’s pic is not from yesterday. It was shared a month back. pic.twitter.com/viZZ5Y4Qhe

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) November 28, 2020

Amit Malviya, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s top IT man, as expected also shared a freeze frame from a viral clip that showed an elederly sick farmer being hit with a baton by a policeman in riot gear. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had shared that image along with thousands of others. Malviya, decided to use the freeze frame and clip taken from the cop’s POV of the laathi mid air, and implied that the old man was not even hit. He then launched a taunt at Rahul Gandhi calling him the “most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long long time”.

Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long long time. https://t.co/9wQeNE5xAP pic.twitter.com/b4HjXTHPSx

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) November 28, 2020

However, he too was served the cold facts by alert social media users who revealed that  Amit Malviya has posted an edited video “to prove the old farmer wasn’t beaten up by police” They shared the entire video clip that revealed the truth.

CIC of #NarendraModi‘s fake news factory & pet poodle AmitMalviya has posted a edited video to prove the old farmer wasn’t beaten up by police & to discredit @RahulGandhi .
Here’s the full video, in fact police abused them too, watch & share, don’t let this serial liar get away. https://t.co/b3kWiBMMtE pic.twitter.com/li4E29khN9

— thakursahab (@65thakursahab) November 28, 2020

Shameless that you are,you expect farmer to be starving,half naked and illiterate so that people like you master and his masters may exploit him.Why am I not surprised that a creepy character like you supports Modi Government? As they say Birds of the same feathers flock together

— Sadaf Jafar (@sadafjafar) November 28, 2020

The laziest troll of the day however was reserved for Vivek Agnihotri, who laughed at a man speaking in English at the farmers’ protest. Agnihotri probably believed that all farmers were illiterate, spoke only one native language, were poor and landless. He too was given a sharp lesson by social media users.

Hahahahaha. The poor landless farmer for whom WOKES are crying. pic.twitter.com/yjl592EuqX

— Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri (@vivekagnihotri) November 27, 2020

Some disclosed that the English speaking farmer was in fact a cousin of actor turned BJP politician Sunny Deol. In fact, Deol’s actor-politician father Dharmendra, has often prided himself on nurturing his own farms. And Dharmendra’s wife actor-politician Hema Malini has in the past posed pics with farmers on social media.

Upr jo Admi bol reha hai uska nam Deep Sidhu hai sunny Deol ka cousin ???? pic.twitter.com/IlLhswf43k

— Gurdeep guru (@Gurdeepgurus) November 28, 2020

Meanwhile, many mosques and gurudwaras continued sharing food and water with the farmers, and the Sikh community members have been feeding langar to the policemen on duty.

Khalistanis providing Langar to Police pic.twitter.com/BXDosww4Jr

— ਸਰਬਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ (@nihang) November 27, 2020

Yes, really. Food na milega apko few years bad ,hopeu read the bills, thodi to shame krlo???? pic.twitter.com/Xo5x68PSIy

— Bandhana Suman (@b_suman1997) November 28, 2020

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The post What do right wing trolls earn by insulting India’s farmers? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
Firebrand journalist Abhisar Sharma who is best known for speaking truth to power on his show Suniye Sarkar started receiving threats via calls and text messages when his number was made public, allegedly by a group of right-wing social media trolls.

 
The messages not only questioned Sharma’s patriotism, but also threatened his family with violence. Sexually derogatory language was used for the women in his family and one of the trolls threatened to rape his little daughter!
But this only made Sharma more determined to fight back and he filed a formal police complaint, following which two men were arrested.

But Barkha Dutt, who returned to television news with her show Democracy Live on HTN recently, had much worse luck. While Dutt is not new to trolling, this time she was targeted more viciously on account of her gender, given how the perpetrators now had access to her personal number and did not face privacy challenges like those on social media. Frustrated by the constant onslaught of abuse, including pictures of genitals, Barkha tweeted this:

Subsequently in a series of tweets, she also made public all the numbers of people who harassed and abused her. But Twitter authorities allegedly threatened to take action against her, locked her account and forced her to delete some of the tweets including the image of the genitals. Shocked, Dutt tweeted:

 
Interestingly, even though Sharma had also tweeted numbers of people who had harassed him, he was not asked to take down the tweets and they are still visible on his page!

In fact, one of Dutt’s harassers was allegedly caught only because police were investigating Sharma’s complaint! At the time of publishing this story, Barkha Dutt was still getting threats! She urged the police to take action.

This apathy is reserved only for women journalists. Winner of Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Award for her book “I am a Troll” Swati Chaturvedi has faced intense trolling. But things got ugly when she received a death threat on Twitter in November 2018. However, no action was taken prompting the UN to write to the government of India.

Meanwhile, Rajdeep Sardesai, whose number was also made public tweeted the following:

Journalists with strong voices of dissent and a large social media following are perceived to be threats to a proto-fascist regime. All these threats are, therefore, a coordinated attack to silence  Abhisar Sharma, Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai and other journalists who value our Constitutional values such as equality, secularism and social justice… men and women who are not afraid to question those in power or expose their wrong doings.

We need to stand by them if we are to preserve not only Press Freedom, but also the larger ideas of Freedom of Expression and the Right to Dissent. After all Dissent is the lifeblood of Democracy.

First published on https://cjp.org.in/
 

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The post Journalists threatened and abused after numbers leaked online appeared first on SabrangIndia.

India’s top pacer Mohammed Shami was trolled in December last year for posting on his Facebook a picture with his wife, Hasin Jehan. Nasty comments were made that Jehan’s sleeveless blouse was not in keeping with Islam’s teachings. Shami was asked to ensure that in future his wife did not appear in public without a hijab.

Now, Irfan Pathan is facing the heat from the moral police on social media for posting on his Facebook a picture with his wife. As it happens, wife Safa Baig does have a dupatta (hijab) covering her head but that obviously is not enough. There’s a suggestion of shyness in her expression as she is seen smiling half-covering her face with her hands next to a beaming Irfan. That’s bad enough for the trolls for they can see half her face and she’s wearing nail polish.

According to news reports, some advised Irfan to pull the picture off the Facebook while others slammed him for not being ‘a good Muslim’. One comment even reminded Irfan not to forget he is a Pathan. “WTF Tell her to cover her arms. Being a Muslim and being a Pathan its your duty to do so.”

Pathan married Baig, a model from Jeddah in February last year and in December the couple was blessed with a baby boy.

Among those who had stood by Shami when he was targeted were cricketer Mohammed Kaif and Javed Akhtar. Pathan no doubt will find enough people to stand by him and against the moral police.
 

The post Now, Irfan Pathan trolled for posting “un-Islamic” selfie with wife appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Twitter War that Followed is a Revelation.

The post FIR Against Journo Sagarika Ghose After She Tweeted on Brutal Lynchings? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“Fail at life. Go bomb yourself.”

Comments like this one, found on a CNN article about how women perceive themselves, are prevalent today across the internet, whether it’s Facebook, Reddit or a news website. Such behavior can range from profanity and name-calling to personal attacks, sexual harassment or hate speech.

A recent Pew Internet Survey found that four out of 10 people online have been harassed online, with far more having witnessed such behavior. Trolling has become so rampant that several websites have even resorted to completely removing comments.

Many believe that trolling is done by a small, vocal minority of sociopathic individuals. This belief has been reinforced not only in the media, but also in past research on trolling, which focused on interviewing these individuals. Some studies even showed that  trolls have predisposing personal and biological traits, such as sadism and a propensity to seek excessive stimulation.

But what if all trolls aren’t born trolls? What if they are ordinary people like you and me? In our research, we found that people can be influenced to troll others under the right circumstances in an online community. By analyzing 16 million comments made on CNN.com and conducting an online controlled experiment, we identified two key factors that can lead ordinary people to troll.
 

What makes a troll?

We recruited 667 participants through an online crowdsourcing platform and asked them to first take a quiz, then read an article and engage in discussion. Every participant saw the same article, but some were given a discussion that had started with comments by trolls, where others saw neutral comments instead. Here, trolling was defined using standard community guidelines – for example, name-calling, profanity, racism or harassment. The quiz given beforehand was also varied to either be easy or difficult.

Our analysis of comments on CNN.com helped to verify and extend these experimental observations.

The first factor that seems to influence trolling is a person’s mood. In our experiment, people put into negative moods were much more likely to start trolling. We also discovered that trolling ebbs and flows with the time of day and day of week, in sync with natural human mood patterns. Trolling is most frequent late at night, and least frequent in the morning. Trolling also peaks on Monday, at the beginning of the work week.
 

Moreover, we discovered that a negative mood can persist beyond the events that brought about those feelings. Suppose that a person participates in a discussion where other people wrote troll comments. If that person goes on to participate in an unrelated discussion, they are more likely to troll in that discussion too.

The second factor is the context of a discussion. If a discussion begins with a “troll comment,” then it is twice as likely to be trolled by other participants later on, compared to a discussion that does not start with a troll comment.

In fact, these troll comments can add up. The more troll comments in a discussion, the more likely that future participants will also troll the discussion. Altogether, these results show how the initial comments in a discussion set a strong, lasting precedent for later trolling.

We wondered if, by using these two factors, we could predict when trolling would occur. Using machine learning algorithms, we were able to forecast whether a person was going to troll about 80 percent of the time.

Interestingly, mood and discussion context were together a much stronger indicator of trolling than identifying specific individuals as trolls. In other words, trolling is caused more by the person’s environment than any inherent trait.

Since trolling is situational, and ordinary people can be influenced to troll, such behavior can end up spreading from person to person. A single troll comment in a discussion – perhaps written by a person who woke up on the wrong side of the bed – can lead to worse moods among other participants, and even more troll comments elsewhere. As this negative behavior continues to propagate, trolling can end up becoming the norm in communities if left unchecked.
 

Fighting back

Despite these sobering results, there are several ways this research can help us create better online spaces for public discussion.

By understanding what leads to trolling, we can now better predict when trolling is likely to happen. This can let us identify potentially contentious discussions ahead of time and preemptively alert moderators, who can then intervene in these aggressive situations.

Machine learning algorithms can also sort through millions of posts much more quickly than any human. By training computers to spot trolling behavior, we can identify and filter undesirable content with much greater speed.

Social interventions can also reduce trolling. If we allow people to retract recently posted comments, then we may be able to minimize regret from posting in the heat of the moment. Altering the context of a discussion, by prioritizing constructive comments, can increase the perception of civility. Even just pinning a post about a community’s rules to the top of discussion pages helps, as a recent experiment conducted on Reddit showed.

Nonetheless, there’s lots more work to be done to address trolling. Understanding the role of organized trolling can limit some types of undesirable behavior.

Trolling also can differ in severity, from swearing to targeted bullying, which necessitates different responses.

It’s also important to differentiate the impact of a troll comment from the author’s intent: Did the troll mean to hurt others, or was he or she just trying to express a different viewpoint? This can help separate undesirable individuals from those who just need help communicating their ideas.

When online discussions break down, it’s not just sociopaths who are to blame. We are also at fault. Many “trolls” are just people like ourselves who are having a bad day. Understanding that we’re responsible for both the inspiring and depressing conversations we have online is key to having more productive online discussions.
 

Jure Leskovec at Stanford University also contributed to this article.
 

Justin Cheng, Ph.D Student in Computer Science, Stanford University; Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, Assistant Professor of Information Science, Cornell University, and Michael Bernstein, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University
 

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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