https://thewire.in/rights/free-speech-social-media19/Apr/2017 Rajshree Chandra: In principle, it offers the possibility of enhancing free speech and gives a voice to millions. It makes authors and opinion makers of folks who otherwise would have been passive consumers of opinion. But there’s also another face that social media wears – a face that is sometimes ugly and threatening. Often, it can blur the lines separating fact from fiction. The multitudinous voices can, at times, be deeply offensive, divisive, violent and plain disgusting. If you are feminist and a woman, and vocal on Twitter, you know what I am talking about.
Citing six instances, Chandra says.. the one common thread is the use of state power to discipline and punish anything interpreted as an offence against sovereign power. But on the social media morality-meter, these posts and remarks were quite mild and temperate.
Where does this exaggerated sense of indignation and intolerance stem from? Is it a bloated sense of righteousness or just a bad sense of the democracy? In either case, the response is the use of state power delivering a subtext of fear.
Obeisance to whataboutery demands that I put on record that this is not the first time that state power has been used to come down on speech-acts on social media.