'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' trailer
Not all stars have the good mood or patience to deal with abuses hurled at them in cyber space, a medium that provides anonymity. Shah Rukh Khan had not long ago briefly gotten off Twitter because he couldn’t handle the filthy comments that were flooding his page. When avenues such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs hit the net for the first time, most celebrities were thrilled. These media gave them a scope to directly reach out to fans without going through the press that, they felt, often distorted quotes. The flip side started showing soon, though. Global celebrities have been tackling the menace of faceless attackers on the net for quite a while, where miscreants create havoc using fake names and i-ds. Bollywood is waking up to the menace only now.
Shahrukh takes on Shahrukh
The world of internet has certainly not been kind to Bollywood celebrities, and the biggest names have fallen prey to malicious post, dirty messages, and distasteful pictures. “The net provides freedom of abusive expression. Normally, no one has the right to get abusive towards a celebrity unless he or she is proven guilty in a particular context.
In India, people in general are disrespectful but they don’t have the guts to express their ire openly.The net lets them vent such emotions against powerful names and acquire a sense of superiority,” said image consultant and noted ad-filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar. Indeed, cyberspace’s dirty graffiti almost reminds you of the days when people used walls of public toilets to make objectionable comments about filmstars. Naturally, several stars have been open about airing disgust. Shah Rukh apart, self-confessed net junkie Priyanka Chopra takes personal care to block all personal and abusive comments.Amitabh Bachchan lodged a complaint with the cyber cell of Mumbai police not long ago against an abuser.
“Celebrities often approach me for help though more often than not they prefer not to report such instances because they feel that would give credence to the abuser. Such offences can be booked Section 66A of the IT regulation Act. On its own, the law is toothless because it is a bailable offence. An offender gets bail if he or she chooses to erase the objectionable post,” said Pavan Duggal, cyber law expert and Supreme Court advocate.
We look at some recent cases and how the stars deal with the menace.
Hrithik Roshan
THE LOWDOWN: After Hrithik posted an interview on his Twitter page, an anonymous follower wrote: “Ek aadha emotion apni acting mein bhi laa dumbass (sic)!” Like most big stars, Facebook is flooded with exclusive pages that are tagged ‘I hate Hrithik Roshan’ and ‘I hate Hrithik Roshan and his films’, formed by people who dislike the actor. These sites overflow filthy abuses and tastelessly morphed pictures of the star.
THE REACTION: To his Twitter slur, Hrithik politely replied. “Am trying. Will try harder…love.” He has mostly ignored the ‘I Hate’ cyber clubs. “It hurts, but that doesn’t mean that you should hurt people back. One needs to think logically to solve this problem,” Hrithik said.
Shah Rukh Khan
THE LOWDOWN: Being the number one star of the biggest film industry in the world has its pitfalls, as SRK often realises. He seems to be the Bollywood star who invites maximum hatred in cyber space. There are numerous pages on Facebook, websites and blogs specifically dedicated to SRK bashing. ‘I hate Shahrukh Khan’ page on Facebook has 1,805 followers and netizens with fake names such as Salman Khan and Ranbir regularly post cuss-loaded messages.The scene is no different on Twitter. SRK recently crossed the million mark on the microblogging site — his page iamsrk has 1,018,220 followers and counting — but not all his followers are fans.
THE REACTION: Upset with the excessive abuses, SRK called it quits on Twitter a few months ago. Reportedly, his adolescent son Aryan happened to read some of the abusive tweets and that upset the actor.
View photos: Aryan Khan, SRK juniour!
Shah Rukh said abusive tweets don’t matter to him but he is bothered when his children or employees read the same because these people look up to him. “Everybody is entitled to freedom of speech but posting gaalis (expletives) is another matter.My son came to know about one such case and asked me, ‘Dad, who are these people? Why on earth should they talk to you like that?’ That’s when I decided to take a break from it.” SRK returned to Twitter subsequently, on popular demand.
Priyanka Chopra
THE LOWDOWN: The superstar actress has as many as seven hate pages on Facebook, specifically meant to malign her. These include ‘I hate Priyanka Chopra’ and ‘Give your Piggy Chops a Padmshree’. That apart, a website, Chakpak.com, has an exclusive forum titled ‘Ten reasons I hate Priyanka Chopra’, where the actress is regularly bashed by anonymous netizens. Priyanka happens to be the third-most followed Indian celebrity after Sachin Tendulkar and Shashi Tharoor. She was the first Bollywood star to cross the million-followers mark on Twitter and has almost 1,164,632 fans now. On Facebook, she has around 2,478,136 fans.
THE REACTION:Being the hottest Bollywood name on interactive sites, Priyanka is obviously aware of the flip side. “I always remember it is up to me to delete or block messages that are rude and objectionable,” said Priyanka recently, when asked about the menace.
Amitabh Bachchan
THE LOWDOWN: The Big B has been an active blogger and his blog, bigb.bigadda.com, has been popular ever since it was launched a few years ago. On Twitter, he operates by the name of SrBachchan. While not many abusive comments have come his way, the superstar has been aggressive with his reactions against the odd unsavoury potshots taken at him.
THE REACTION: Last August, Bachchan senior tried to take legal action against a person posting objectionable messages on his blog. Reportedly, the anonymous person also sent him cuss-loaded messages on his cellphone from an unknown number.“There is a serious effort by a member that writes and comments on this blog to use language and expression that is abusive, filthy and utterly disgusting.I have brought this to the notice of the authorities and corrective measures to see none of the stuff that comes from this foul-mouthed individual shall ever be allowed on this platform. Any further attempt from this person shall now be under legal cyber space action, now very prominently activated in this country. This individual has been sending me the most unprintable abuse on sms. I have after great tolerance for many months now reported the matter to the police and they will be taking serious punitive action, not just in my country but in the country of the origin of these missives. This blog, this platform, this home for our extended family members is a sacred and revered destination and any attempt to defile it shall be dealt with in the most severe manner,” the Big B wrote on his blog shortly after lodging a police complaint.
Touchy Big B hoarded negative reviews
Sonakshi Sinha
THE LOWDOWN: Sonakshi became a victim of internet abuse when morphed pictures featuring the actress in a white bikini did rounds of the cyberworld. A Facebook page dedicated to posting lewd messages about her is titled ‘I hate Sonakshi sl*t Sinha’. </p> <p>On this page, people who dislike her have posted several pictures of the actress from her earlier days when she was obese.</p> <p> Earlier this year during the cricket World Cup, Sonakshi earned ire on the net when she posted a morphed picture of Virender Sehwag hitting Shahid Afridi on the butt with his bat. She captioned the picture: “De Ghumake”.
Sonakshi's photo hurts her fans
THE REACTION:While on the morphed bikini snapshot, which featured the backdrop and logo of the fashion magazine Maxim, Sonakshi tweeted: “I’m on Maxim is right, but the figure is completely wrong (sic).” Sonakshi was referring to the fact that she had posed for the magazine, but not in a bikini. On the fake World Cup picture, she tweeted after receiving threatening messages: “Too many people here without a sense of humour. Boo (sic).” She added that she had posted the picture ahead of the Indo- Pak semifinal match to boost the spirit of our cricketers.
NUTTY ON THE NET: The craziest cyber incidents involving global celebs
Michael Jackson: He is perhaps the celebrity to have ‘died’ the most number of times on the net. On one instance, Tweets about MJ rose so fast that it led to a temporary shutdown of Twitter.
Jackie Chan:In March, Twitter was flooded with messages suggesting Chan was dead. ‘RIP Jackie Chan’ became a trending topic.
Johnny Depp:Was among the most recent Hollywood celebs to suffer a death hoax. He was rumoured to have died in a car crash.
Miley Cyrus:Famous as Hannah Montana, she is said to be the net’s most hated person. Type ‘I hate Miley Cyrus’ and you get around 74,100 results. ‘I hate Hannah Montana’ gives 70,500 results.
