Mumbai cops remove over 650 misleading social media posts on Covid-19, hate messages

Mumbai Police have pulled down over 650 objectionable messages including misleading posts on Covid-19, hateful messages, communal posts, false and fake news linking

Mumbai Police have pulled down over 650 objectionable messages including misleading posts on Covid-19, hateful messages, communal posts, false and fake news linking to the disease, and other such content from various social media platforms since the beginning of the lockdown till Thursday morning.

HT Image

Five FIRs have also been registered in this regard, said a senior police officer from city police.

“The state cyber police have taken down 60 such posts and 155 accused arrested so far, said Harish Baijal, deputy inspector general of state cyber police.

A senior police officer from city police on Thursday told HT that the Social Media Lab (SML) of Special Branch-1, the intelligence wing of Mumbai police, has pulled down 550 objectionable posts during the lockdown period. “These posts were highly misleading, baseless and had potential to trigger panic among people and also communal tension in the city,” the officer said.

The officer further added that the messages circulating initially on the social media platforms had misinformation regarding coronavirus, but later, messages on the Tablighi Jamaat incident of Delhi spread like wildfire.

“We keep a close eye on trends and patterns and analyse them to identify the platforms or groups which are regularly spreading such inflammatory videos or posts. Then appropriate action is taken against such elements,” another officer said.

A team of 30 highly trained, technologically sound, multilingual dedicated policemen of SML works in three shifts to keep an eagle’s eye on the suspicious activities on various social media platforms.

They look for objectionable content on popular platforms with the help of advanced filter tools. Once detected, the content is immediately blocked or removed with the help of the service providers.

Members of this team are regularly given training by Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), anti-terror agencies and other government agencies about the new tools, filters and soft-wares that can be used to trace trouble makers operating online.