Using 'face' to book eve-teasers not yet a Mumbai funda

The use of social media to catch or shame eve-teasers, as was done by Akshay Kingar in Bangalore, has not happened in Mumbai so far, though the police and experts are open to
the idea.

"If someone has taken a video of a crime or eve-teasing and he or she puts it up to inform others, that can only help us in our job," said a police officer.

Cyber expert Vijay Mukhi too is gung-ho about using social media as an additional tool to catch law-breakers and harassers. "This is a form of vigilantism wherein every citizen can become a cop and help catch law-breakers and the use of YouTube or Facebook for such purposes is welcome, and is being done. I know of cases where people take videos of people breaking signals or spitting on the roads in Mumbai and putting these videos or pictures online to stop such activities," he said.

Much as helping the police catch culprits, there is also the risk of misuse, often done with provocative messages and visuals. Last year, following the Bodo-Muslim riots in Assam, morphed pictures were put up on You Tube and sent as MMS. This led to rioting in different cities, causing thousands of northeasterners to rush home fearing for their lives.

The police officer said the content must be vetted by the police before it is put on a social media site. "Before any video is put up, one must be sure that the content is not objectionable because that can be worse. If the content is fine, then put it up by all means," he added.

Mukhi echoed the sentiment. "Something online can destroy a person's reputation. It doesn't take much to morph a picture today, or put up things out of context and then blackmail a person. So one must be sure it is authentic," he warned.

Last year, a middle-aged woman from Navi Mumbai had tweeted that she was going to commit suicide because her family was harassing her, causing a frenzy on Twitter. Later, it was found that the woman was schizophrenic and under medication and that her family had not been harassing her.

Mukhi says what will make the difference will be the repuation of the person putting up content on social media. "A person's background is important," he said, and added that the use of social media to catch culprits will grow. "More and more people keep vigil these days."