It isn’t, but
that is the very message youngsters in India are beginning to receive when
political activists riot outside their houses and haul their brothers and
sisters to nearby police stations. More so, when they are young, innocent and
unsuspecting victims of pranksters as in the recent case of a teenage boy, from
a suburb of Mumbai.
The prankster’s
modus operandi is simple. Spoof the victims Facebook ID or hack into his legitimate
one. Post an offensive message against
the political leader. Relax, and enjoy the drama which unfolds as the victim
faces the ire of the leader’s supporters and is embroiled in a police
investigation.
This strategy
was used by a prankster (or individual wanting to settle a score) to put a 19
year old lad in a state of emotional distress.
The boy was escorted to the police station by people he knew from the
neighborhood in which he lived for the last 17 years. The cyber police after a brief
investigation cleared his name.
Some of
statements he made which were published in the Times of India show the fear and anguish
his family faced:
“I was scared when the
police detained me. I was worried for my parents and sister who wondered why
using the Internet should land someone in the police station”
“My sisters (one in
class 12 and another in class 8) were asking if using the Internet was a crime”
People
affected by offensive posts are entitled to follow the due process of the law
by filing complaints and allowing the police to investigate. But at the same
time they must be restrained from taking law into their own hands and hauling
individuals to police stations based on their own interpretation of posts
and tweets.
To be safe from
such problems remember that you are responsible for what you post online and
the wider audience that views it. Do take precautions to report spoofed
accounts as well as your legitimate accounts that have been hacked. The
responsibility for protecting your accounts rests on your use of best practices
while choosing passwords and while surfing the Internet.
This just highlights how a difference in cultures can actually affect the use of IT. In the US if my Facebook account was hacked and similar post were made, there would NO consequences for those actions.
ReplyDeleteThis also points out how important security, that many would consider trivial, can be. I hear all the time, "yeah I got hacked, but it was only my Facebook, it wasn't like it was my bank account!"
Really makes you think........