Cyber mobbing- How far are we going with it?

The impact of media on our lives cannot be argued upon. Ever since the boom of Internet in the mid-1990s, social media has been on a constant rise, with no signs of slowing down. Every other person today is a user of some social media site. Many a time, quite a few of these users end up being victims of cyberbullying and other forms of online harassment.

A recent trend of harassment however, is social media bashing. In layman’s language, bashing describes verbal abuse and harsh public criticism. Combined with the term social, it refers to accusatory or abusive verbal attacks via social media activities. This phenomenon is often referred to as cyber mobbing.

Although clearly a wrong practice, it is often noticed that people who bash others on social media have either been victims of cyber mobbing themselves, or suffer from acute inferiority complex and other psychological disorders which raise their social anxiety to the next level. It however, may affect the person who is being mobbed adversely as well. It is a two-way social evil which has no real solution other than believing in one’s skills and image.

Celebrities too have often been victims of social media bashing on numerous occasions. Cyber mobbing is frequently seen on social networks like Facebook and Twitter and some controversial issue is raised by the person in reference.

The following have been recent victims of cyber mobbing: –

Mumbai Police

A photo of an overweight policeman went viral on social media after popular newspaper columnist Shobha De tweeted saying “Heavy police arrangement in Mumbai today.”

A lot of people criticized Mumbai police for having incompetent men in their force, but the issue was soon sorted out very efficiently by the Mumbai police, basically, because the policeman did not even belong to the force.

Amisha Patel

Bollywood actress Amisha Patel has recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons. While at a premier screening of a movie, TV actor Kushal Tandon noticed that she did not stand up for the national anthem. After personally attacking her on Twitter regarding the same, a lot of fans of Kushal Tandon backed him up , starting a debate on patriotism and nationalism. Amisha Patel later had to take on to Twitter to clarify that she could not stand up during that national anthem because she was menstruating and it wasn’t possible for her to stand up at that very moment.

Arnab Goswami

Arnab Goswami, senior journalist at Times Now has been a frequent victim of cyber mobbing. His distinctive yells during his debate at the prime time were a laughing factor for many who did not agree with whatever he said.

Barkha Dutt

Barkha Dutt is one of the most prominent journalists of India. Her views about controversial issues such as intolerance, beef ban and JNU were not very well received by the masses. She too, is a frequent victim of cyber mobbing.

Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan

Prior to the release of his film ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’, Pakistani actor Fawad Khan was loved by the Indian audiences. A series of unfortunate events gave rise to the banning of numerous Pakistani artists from performing in India. Ever since then, Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan have been constant victims of social media bashing.

Tanmay Bhatt

Stand-up comedian and Co-founder of the YouTube sketch group AIB, Tanmay Bhatt has been in the news since 2015, after the controversial roast video. To make matters worse, his insult humour based Snapchat video mocking the cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and veteran singer Lata Mangeshkar outraged the Indian audiences to a dangerous level. Death threats and a temporary ban followed soon after.

All these examples have one thing in common and that is, the people are cyber-mobbed because they usually have an unfavourable opinion about something which the masses do not like. Such negative attitude gives rise to such cyber evils.

There is no real solution to cyber mobbing, rather than to live and let live. It is now up to us to see what and whom we care about, ourselves or others and their opinion?