Delhi min asks Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook to act on 'hate campaigns' against Dalits, women

Delhi Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam on Friday said WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter were being used to slander people belonging to marginalised castes as well as women, and asked their management to take action against those running "venomous hate campaigns" on the social media platforms. In separate letters to Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari, WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose and Facebook India Vice President Ajit Mohan, Gautam said while the online world has emerged as an influential medium of information in the lockdown necessitated due to coronavirus, "social media is also being used in a damaging way".

"I have noticed that in recent times organised trends to ridicule and slander marginalised castes and women have increased exponentially," he said. The minister said that Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter have become a place where "casteist slurs are being used against Dalit intellectuals to demean them".

The posts of Dalit intellectuals are being "countered by fanatics who have also defamed great leaders like B R Ambedkar", he said. The minister asked the management of these social media platforms to take action in "one of the most strict measures against those who are trying to misuse these platforms by running venomous hate campaigns".

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