'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' trailer
Not all stars have the good mood or patience to deal with abuses hurled at them in cyber space, a medium that provides anonymity. Shah Rukh Khan had not long ago briefly gotten off Twitter because he couldn’t handle the filthy comments that were flooding his page. When avenues such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs hit the net for the first time, most celebrities were thrilled. These media gave them a scope to directly reach out to fans without going through the press that, they felt, often distorted quotes. The flip side started showing soon, though. Global celebrities have been tackling the menace of faceless attackers on the net for quite a while, where miscreants create havoc using fake names and i-ds. Bollywood is waking up to the menace only now.
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The world of internet has certainly not been kind to Bollywood celebrities, and the biggest names have fallen prey to malicious post, dirty messages, and distasteful pictures. “The net provides freedom of abusive expression. Normally, no one has the right to get abusive towards a celebrity unless he or she is proven guilty in a particular context.
In India, people in general are disrespectful but they don’t have the guts to express their ire openly.The net lets them vent such emotions against powerful names and acquire a sense of superiority,” said image consultant and noted ad-filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar. Indeed, cyberspace’s dirty graffiti almost reminds you of the days when people used walls of public toilets to make objectionable comments about filmstars. Naturally, several stars have been open about airing disgust. Shah Rukh apart, self-confessed net junkie Priyanka Chopra takes personal care to block all personal and abusive comments.Amitabh Bachchan lodged a complaint with the cyber cell of Mumbai police not long ago against an abuser.
“Celebrities often approach me for help though more often than not they prefer not to report such instances because they feel that would give credence to the abuser. Such offences can be booked Section 66A of the IT regulation Act. On its own, the law is toothless because it is a bailable offence. An offender gets bail if he or she chooses to erase the objectionable post,” said Pavan Duggal, cyber law expert and Supreme Court advocate.
We look at some recent cases and how the stars deal with the menace.
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