Cyber Trolling

Cyber Trolling

                                                                       Dr. Ritu Gautam

                                                                      [Cyber Law Expert]

It has become a frequent feature in the news citing famous personalities being trolled on various social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. Most of them were female celebrities like Taapsee Panuu, Radhika Apte, Ameesha Patel, Kangna Raunat, Priyanka Chopra, Sonam Kapoor and who not. I think every female who speaks her mind or expresses her opinion, is vulnerable to cyber trolling. Though females are more prone to trolling but even males do not enjoy any immunity from this behavior and celebrities like Abhishek Bachchan, Varun Dhawan, Salman Khan even Amitabh Bachchan have been subjected to such trolling.

What is Cyber Trolling?

For those who are not familiar with this phenomenon developed in last decade due to the advent of social media, Trolling can be defined as an act or a series of acts, of intentionally creating discord, insult, mental injury on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people by posting inflammatory or off-topic or hateful comment, using offensive language, causing annoyance to someone, sexually colored remark, menacing character of a person, in an online community.

Basically, a social media troll is someone who purposely says something offensive or controversial in order to provoke or get a rise out of other users. Cyber trolling can quickly take more devious forms, in the shape of cyber bullying, cyber harassment or sometime cyber stalking.

Everyone joins in acknowledging the need of taking some measure to discourage such offensive behavior, but they are paradoxically equivocal against any curtailment of speech. The proponents of free speech fiercely argue against any intervention by government or law enforcement citing it to be their democratic right. Freedom of expression is the fundamental right provided by the Constitution (Article 19) to every citizen of India which cannot be infringed even by the government.

But its important to understand that no right is an absolute right, and every right has certain reasonable restrictions along with a duty i.e. duty to respect privacy, culture, religious beliefs and practices and profession.

Do we have Laws for cyber Trolling?

According to NCRB reports after “Hacking”, Cyber trolling/bullying/ harassment was the most invoking section of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008 i.e. “66A. Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc. which stated that

 “Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,—

(a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or

(b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device,

(c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages,

shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine”

But this section was used as tool by law enforcement and governments to target individuals on the basis of political affiliations, sexual orientation, religious or racial profiling. Such arbitrary misuse was brought to the attention of the judiciary and resultantly Supreme Court of India considered it to be vague or loosely defined and struck down this section in the case of Shreya Singhal v. Union of India on March 2015. It’s not to question the prudence of the judiciary but the critical requirement to make cyberspace cordial and tolerable.

Trolling is ubiquitous as is internet, so how other countries are dealing with it?

UK is having a whole comprehensive piece of legislature over this topic named as “Malicious Communication Act 2004” which states that “Any person who sends a letter, electronic communication or article of any description to a person that conveys a message that is indecent or highly offensive, a threat or false information.  If the reason for that communication was to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person, then the sender is guilty of an offence.” This includes mobile phones and the Internet (any form of electronic communication). The offence occurs even though those targeted might not have actually receive the message and liable for punishment upto two-years of jail sentence.

Australia is having the law for the same under Part 10.2 of its Criminal code.

United States is having “Violence against Women Act” and Under federal Law section 47 U.S.C. § 223(a)(1)(A) specifically deals with cyber harassment and trolling. 

New Zealand passed a similar law in 2015

We believe that God help those who help themselves and there a very famous legal maxim under Roman Law which says that, “Vigilantibus et non dormientibus succurrunt jura” means the law comes to the assistance of those who are vigilant with their rights, and not those who sleep on their rights. 

It’s being four years since Supreme Court verdict against 66A, but neither legislature nor judiciary cared to plug the void left by repeal of section 66A. The steep rise in numbers as well as more vicious forms of trolling incidences, augurs for immediate action and its high time we must raise our voice to compel our democratic institutions to address such rampant callousness on cyberspace.


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