Is the social media responsible for lynching?

July 16 was the golden jubilee celebration of moon landing. The same day when the entire world celebrated men's supreme achievement a woman fell victim to a beating of a marauding mob in the capital. The single mother seeking information about the admission procedure for her daughter was suspected to be a child lifter. She was beaten to death. Mob-killing has been headlined daily since spreading the baseless rumour through Facebook that the Padma Bridge required severed human heads and blood for its construction. 

Anthropologically we, the Bango-basin dwellers, are fond of rumours. Social media gave it an epidemic dimension. In a Facebook troll a Korean engineer of the Padma Bridge Project wrote that they needed a lot of heads (manpower) for the construction of the bridge. But illiterate workers mistook it for severed human heads leading to the misunderstanding.
Quick digital revolution in Bangladesh ensures access to internet for almost everyone but in an unfiltered way. The 'blood-and-head' tale nourished the mob beating unleashing a wave of brutal acts in society killing so far seven innocent people in broad day light. The rumour mill got rolling creating panic among those parents and guardians who have firm faith in fables wafting around them.

The recent mob beating can be traced to a gruesome murder in Netrokona: a drug addict in the district was found with a severed head of a child in a bag. He was killed by a mob thinking him to be 'child lifter'. Before the original story unfolded the rumour began to fly around that a group of people across the country had been killing people to feed the Padma Bridge with human blood. In the wink of an eye incidents of mob beating had spread across the country.
In a similar incident six men were killed by a mob mistaking them for kidnappers. But it was later revealed that the rival fishermen intentionally brought the allegation against them. The Padma Bridge issue was not the first and only social media abashment in the country. Rumour also spread that Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, a former leader of now-defunct Jamat-e-Islami, was seen on the moon. A Photoshop edit went viral in 2013 to save him from being executed during the trial of the war criminals.

After eviction of Hefazat-e-Islam from Shapla Square the same year, the said community spread rumours about millions of casualties. They used the pictures of genocides around the world to attract public attentions.
The same thing happened during Rohingya exodus in Myanmar a couple of years back. The sentimentalists used the footages of Syria war sufferings, old Indian tribal conflicts and such materials to draw sympathy of Muslim community from around the world. After Priya Saha's controversial statement to the USA President Donald Trump, a section of people started to upload old footages of communal conflicts to establish Priya's statements.
We have raised our literacy rate to above 70 per cent, we have sent our own satellite into the space and cellular phones have reached the farthest corners of the country but possibly with some blunders. Superstition-free mindset is not less important than medical colleges. Nurturing free thinking is equally important to feeding empty stomachs. Capacity building to resist evil agenda in community is more necessary than dams on rivers. Knowing the fact in the era of information technology, need to be considered as one of the basic needs like food, clothes, shelter, education and medicine.

Question might arise why does such false information spread around us? Rumour mongers generally spread rumours to achieve some motives. They spread gossips to mislead people, to change popular focus, to disguise them, to gain power, to get attention, to feel accepted, to get revenge, to follow any command of shrewd superiors or to get relieved from boredom. So, there must have some deep conspiracies or idiocy behind these malicious talks.

To fight against information terrorism via popular social media like Facebook and Youtube, the knowledge of information filtering needs to be ensured among the users. An ICT course has been made mandatory for all school and college going students. A chapter titled 'Safe use of social media' needs to be incorporated to make teen and young internet users aware of the fake information flows on social sites.

Article 25, 27 and 28 of the Digital Security Act 2018 deal with false or fear inducing data-information, information terrorism and information provocative religious sentiments. But such propaganda to hit public sentiments was not defined clearly and the punishment is not at all shocking for the cyber criminals. The highest level of penalty for such crime is less than 7 years of imprisonment or fine not exceeding Tk10 lakhs or both. The crime of spreading rumours using social media should be treated as severe criminal offence and level of punishment needs to be more stringent so that offenders think twice before committing such crimes.

Mob killing however, needs to be prohibited by law. It's unlawful and must be treated as 'attempt to murder'. The promoters of brutality in the name of mob beating can't go unpunished. 

The author is a Daily Observer journalist and writer