Journalists denounce trolling on social media
7 Sep 2017 6:26 PM GMT
New Delhi: Online abuse heaped on a dead Gauri Lankesh lays bare the "hostile atmosphere" people are facing on Thursday on social media where an army of trolls is either "intimidating dissenters" or fomenting tension, according to leading journalists.
Shocked at the gunning down of the 55-year-old journalist -activist, an outspoken critic of Hindutva politics, many journalists and activists concurred that a "climate of fear" was being built by "paid trolls" on Facebook and Twitter to silence those holding divergent views or to "spread disinformation".
Senior TV journalist Ravish Kumar said that he felt like he was a "dead man walking" ever since he heard about the chilling murder of Lankesh at the entrance of her home in Bengaluru, an eerie reminder of the killings of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar and former vice-chancellor of Hampi University M M Kalburgi.
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