“There are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.”
– Mark Twain.
Article 19 of the Constitution of India – Freedom of Speech and Expression, grants the citizens, the right to communicate their thoughts and opinions. This article is highly significant as opinions represent an individual as a whole.
The beliefs of every individual, are influenced by experiences, interaction with other people and largely based on the information they perceive. Talking about ‘information, it is being fed into our minds by public platforms and that includes radios, news channels, and most prominently – social networking sites.
From a legal point of view, in a democratic country like India, does the information available on social media platforms affect the trial of a case?
Can this information act as authentic evidence, based on which unbiased verdicts can be given by the Courts?
Does the Digital Age threaten an independent Judicial System?
Media, also known as one of the pillars of democracy, plays a very consequential role in a democratic setup like ours. Information reaches individuals from every nook and corner of the world via media. With the advent of the digital age, every little piece of news is accessible to people with lightning speed.
There’s no denying the power of social media, but it also poses a real challenge. How do you know what is true and what is fake in an online world with no editorial control?
The central objective of the media is to provide unbiased news to the citizens. When in reality, the truth is being concealed now and then. The media has been receiving a number of contracts from individuals and organizations, who in return want the media to publicize positive coverage for them.
This practice is known as “Paid News” and is widespread in the country. It began in the 1950s and continues to be facilitated by politicians, organizations, celebrities, and brands, who are looking to give a facelift to their public images.
The public is influenced by media in a lot of ways, which includes what they come across on social networking sites. For instance, in the 20th century, a famous American celebrity named Roscoe Arbuckle was proved guilty by the media trial.
Later on, he was proved not guilty by the Hon’ble Court. But as a result of an excessively covered media trial, his reputation was wrecked. Hollywood shunned him and he could no longer find work.
Judges are humans too and therefore, exposure to the public’s remarks and connected sentiments can have an effect on them. The omnipresence of social media has also led to a number of jurors using social media to research trial details, despite specific warnings against doing this.
This use has the power to affect the outcomes of the trial and can potentially lead to mistrials. So, other than the evidence presented to them, they might also check up the details of the case on social media. This can lead to them forming an opinion based on the facts which are not presented in the Court.
There are risks and challenges inherent in the use of social media by the judiciary which highlights the issue of integrity and morals.
“Contemporary media trials on social media has an influence on how a judge decides a case.”
-Justice Sikri.
“It is becoming very alarming but we are in the era of paid and fake news because of the digital era. Stories are created…and somebody puts it on any digital mode and these, in a few hours’ time, become viral. The reach is a billion people”; he said.
He also said, “the media has undergone a complete transformation in the digital age and now. We are in the era of paid and fake news.”
‘Presumption of Innocence’ holds no value?
Presumption of Innocence is an International Human Right, declared under Article 11 of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although being a basic human right, it’s not something respected on the world wide web.
Public trials in the media, especially those on social networking platforms, have led to the criminalization of individuals. This assumed guilt based on false accusations and one-half of a picture is what some believe to be menacing and life-changing.
The power of the voice of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – to name a few, cannot be underestimated. One tweet or post instantly erases the landmark ‘innocent until proven guilty’ notion and human rights ‘warriors’ from all around the globe will board a train to the media platform to defend mere words of a status update.
On one hand, victims have a massive dominion over their abusers, to confront them directly and publicly and on the other hand, along with this advantage that social media platforms bestow upon them, the victims must make sure they are backing up their accusations with facts and not mere baseless allegations.
Under these circumstances, they’re more likely to be looking for being sued for defamation or libel. In India, defamation is both a civil and criminal offense; the convicted individual can be imprisoned for a term that may extend to two years, under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code.
Libel is a defamatory statement that is written. Such accusations, whether true or false, are so widely reported, that it makes it difficult to find a non-biased jury. These cases are publicized at such a big scale that the Courts struggle to come to a verdict without being possibly influenced by the reports they have been constantly circulated.
As far as evidence is concerned, an item must be authenticated. There is a high chance of manipulation and abuse of the evidence available on public platforms.
While describing the influence of media Shri Harish Salve, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, said – “Privacy is a virtue, we scorn”.
Recent Social Media Trials
Throwing light on some recent events like the death of a promising Indian actor, Sushant Singh Rajput, the media coverage in abundance is creating echo chambers all over the internet. The publicity that this event has gained is stranglehold! The evidence and matters of investigation are consistently available on the internet.
As a result, netizens (a portmanteau of the words-internet and citizen, as in a ‘citizen of the net’ or persons actively engaged in uncensored discussions of political and social issues) involve themselves in debates, to make conclusions which eventually results in accusations, personal attacks, and offensive arguments.
Moreover, events like these become heated dinner table discussions, only to be forgotten in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!
The Press Council of India (PCI) condemned the media for its coverage in the investigation of the death of the actor, saying the journalism norms and conduct have been violated.
The statement also said, “The media should not narrate the story in a manner so as to induce the general public to believe in the complicity of the person indicted. Publishing information based on gossip about the line of investigation by the official agencies on the crime committed is not desirable. The media is advised not to conduct its own parallel trial of foretell the decision to avoid pressure during investigation and trial. The witnesses’ right to privacy must not be breached”.
Another burning campaign on social media was #MeToo. Inspired by a global movement, an uproar of allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct was initiated against men from industries like media and entertainment.
Some allegations were from events that took place decades ago! All these accusations perfectly mushroomed on social media and were confined to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram posts, only. Some allegations were not even formally registered as complaints in a police station or turned into suits.
While some of these allegations turned out to be true, others propagated defamation. Some faded away, and some resulted in dire consequences. Public humiliation with no oversight turned into trials. Many men lost their jobs, families were shamed and harassed, faced a lot of name-callings, and much more.
Another case was the ‘Bois Locker Room’, which started in May 2020, when the world was facing a lockdown. As a result, it spread like a wildfire when an Instagram user (female) shared screenshots of chats from a group named ‘Bois Locker Room’.
These chats involved explicit content in terms of sexual harassment and about gang-raping girls. People started reposting and sharing these chats, without even knowing the facts or the truth behind this story, blaming men and their upbringing. On May 6, 2020, the hashtag #boyslockerroom was retweeted over 30,000 times. This resulted in the piling of verdicts based on different facts on social media.
In the same month, a 17-year-old boy named Manav Singh, allegedly committed suicide after his friends started harassing him on social media, as a result of a girl naming him in an Instagram post stating that he molested her.
The police started an investigation. Later, the accuser deleted the post. The allegations stood null as the girl never came forward. Soon after, Manav Singh’s brother took to Instagram that his brother was innocent, urged that his brother should not be held guilty for a crime he didn’t commit.
This unfortunate event brought about several opinions on the table, how character assassination on social media is not justified when there are no facts supporting the same.
In law, punishment aims at serving the purpose of prevention, deterrence, compensation, retribution, and rehabilitation. There is no provision of ‘public humiliation’ or ‘social media trials’ in the largest democratic machinery.
Infamous Media Proceedings
In our country, media trials have had prominence for a long time. There have been cases wherein, the media has declared judgments on behalf of the citizens, giving no respect or importance to fair trials.
A well-known case that influenced the public at large and the judiciary was the Jessica Lal murder case (2010), wherein despite the victim being killed at a high-profile party in the presence of a number of witnesses, the media had to create a public hysteria to bring justice to Jessica.
Another case was of Priyadarshini Mattoo (2006), a law student who was brutally raped and murdered. In this case, the judgment is surmised to be affected by the media trial.
The Nitish Katara Honor Killing Case (2002) and the Bijal Joshi Rape case (2003) are also popular cases where the media intervened to punish the accused, which is a positive influence.
But as we know, nothing interesting is ever completely one-sided. In cases like the Malegaon blast (2006), where 9 innocent residents of Malegaon- all Muslims, were accused of blasts near Hamidia Mosque, Malegaon, killing 37 people and injuring more than 100.
All nine were charged under the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) and were acquitted after 10 years by a special court. Who will compensate for all these years of defamation and torture?
Another sensationalized case is the 2008 Noida Double Murder Case, also known as Aarushi Talwar-Hemraj’s unsolved murders. The investigation was said to be botched, leaving no clarity in the case. The media-generated speculations of honor killing.
This excessive enthusiasm and intense devotion by the media lead to miscarriage of justice. The victim’s parents Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were held guilty by a special CBI court on 25th November 2013.
Cut to 2020, a case where media is playing a crucial role is Rhea Chakraborty V. State of Bihar. The debates are all over social media, even before any verdict being given by the authorities.
Parallel investigations are being carried out on a huge scale, where anyone is being blamed and accused of Sushant Singh Rajput’s sudden demise. WhatsApp chats, bank statements, postmortem reports and corpse photographs are being circulated all over the media.
Their interpretation has been discussed by a panel of ‘experts’ on news channels. Without an iota of proof, every individual involved in the case was given legitimacy publicly.
Journalism + Social Media = Informed Public?
Digital media provides a wealth of data. But how do we know what is fake and what is true?
A Paris-based research firm called Ipsos conducted a survey in 2019 called “Trust in Media”.
This survey showed that Indians believe a fair amount of misinformation and fake news exists across many media platforms.
Also, it’s a fair observation that the majority of the public takes interest in sensational, scandalous news, served hot by the media. And the journalists know this. As a result, scandalous coverage is produced. Substantive pieces of relevant topics are also covered. Guess what the public wants to read more of? Scandal!!.
It’s this ferocious circle wherein, the public’s interest in “masala”, fuels the journalist’s drive to write more and more of such stories. TRP ratings matter more than genuine, authentic information to be communicated to the audience. It’s sort of a failing, at both, the level of the public and the level of the journalists.
So, if the media is going to live up to its duty to democracy, it has to make sure it continues to sell informative and interesting stories giving the citizens the information we need. If the media chooses sensationalism over substance, where does that leave us?
And on our end, do we need to demand better, more comprehensive coverage of the issues that matter to us?
Conclusion:
One would think, that with better technology and strong connectivity, media coverage would have gradually transformed into a more responsible and ethical arrangement. Turns out it’s an even bigger ramification in the name of duty towards a democracy.
The media has to be properly regulated by the courts. Trials and parallel investigations cannot be encouraged. The media has to play a role of a facilitator, rather than presenting biased information.
Freedom of speech doesn’t stand for violation of human rights. On the 2019 Global Democracy Index, India slipped 10 ranks. The Economic Intelligence Unit cited “erosion of civil liberties” in the country as a primary cause of this fall. India was included in the “flawed democracy” category.
In the words of American Journalist, Ray Marcano, in his TEDxDayton Speech, “News is noteworthy information, free of bias. But content? That’s something anyone can write”.
Change starts from us, to become an individual again. To not be a part of a flock of sheep. If someone tells us something, it is anecdotal and does not have any credibility with nothing to back it up. As quoted by Mr. Marcano again, “While everyone is entitled to their opinion, nobody is entitled to their facts.”
By Krishnanjana Kaimal, 2nd Year LL.B(Gen.), Faculty of Law, the Maharaja Sayajirao University Baroda, Vadodara.
