WhatsApp Text Message Sparks Fury; Men Beaten Down

A WhatsApp text message that circulated in some districts in India’s Central Madhya Pradesh state fueled the rage of a mob of 50 to 60 villagers and made them violently beat up two unsuspecting men last week over suspicions that the two were going to murder people and sell their body parts.

The message was written in Hindi, and it claimed that 500 people were disguised as beggars and were roaming around the area, with a plan to kill people and harvest their organs. The message also encouraged the recipients to forward it to their friends and family, but police say that the message was fake.

There were police officers that joined several local WhatsApp groups and they found 3 men who were circulating the message. The men were already arrested, according to Jayadevan A. who is the police chief of Balaghat district, the location of the incident.

A few weeks before, a WhatsApp text warned of 400 child traffickers arriving in the southern Indian technology hub of Bengaluru. The text led a frenzied mob to beat up a 26-year-old man on suspicion that he was a kidnapper.

It was discovered that the man was a migrant construction worker from another Indian State. He was attacked while walking on the road.

So far in 2018, false messages about child abductors on WhatsApp, a Facebook-owned messaging app, have coaxed mass lynching of more than a dozen people in India. At least three of those people have died.

In addition, fake messages regarding child abductors on Facebook and WhatsApp also led to the beating of two other men in eastern India just within this month.

India is WhatsApp's biggest market in the world, sporting more than 200 million users. Fake news and videos circulating on the messaging app have been a new problem for the social media giant Facebook, which is already struggling with string of privacy scandals.

India has been prone to mass hysteria caused by false news messages and videos that can instantly go viral due to cheap mobile data that over a billion phone subscribers have access to.

Last year, at least 111 people were killed, while 2,384 injured in 822 communal incidents in the country, according to the federal home affairs ministry. It remains unclear whether any of the incidents were sparked by fake news messages.

“Sadly some people also use WhatsApp to spread harmful misinformation,” said WhatsApp in statement. “We’re stepping up our education efforts so that people know about our safety features and how to spot fake news and hoaxes.”

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