Editor’s Note: With #NoPlace4Hate , Youth Ki Awaaz and Facebook have joined hands to help make the Internet a safer space for all. Watch this space for powerful stories of how young people are mobilising support and speaking out against online bullying.

I have myself experienced and seen the way social media discussions are initiated, and usually, they are nothing short of hooliganism. They can be compared to kangaroo courts where judgments would pass based on the frivolous opinions of some idiots, upon which you will be ridiculed and abused. I had myself been a victim of cyberbullying on various occasions.

For a long time, I was trying to ignore the incident involving a bunch of hooligans cyberbullying and abusing the Malayalam actor Parvathy. Parvathy had earlier commented about Malayalam superstar Mammootty’s 2016 film “Kasaba”, where the actor delivered a misogynistic dialogue.

This observation made by Parvathy should have been another small piece of news, but, it dominated the media for days and weeks.There was both criticism and support for her comments on social media, but the kind of outrageous and unacceptable comments made by self-proclaimed fans of Mammootty’s were beyond the limit.

Initially, I thought that the trolls attacking Parvathy were another bunch of people taking offence to the comment. Let’s not forget, taking offence is our national job. But this was crossing all boundaries this time. It would have been acceptable if the comments were counter-arguments, rather than personal attacks, but it’s easy to pull down and tear someone apart with personal attacks than makes sensible arguments.

The philosopher Socrates, once said, “when the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”

Mammootty never took offence publicly or made counter-arguments against the statement, but his self-proclaimed fans took offence for him and started hurling abuses on all of her social media page, i.e. Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. A group of people taking offence for a celebrity is not something new. Some time back Tanmay Bhat was abused for making a Snapchat video on Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar.

Some people take offence in the name of celebrities. Taking the cover of being ‘fans’, they hurl abuses hiding under the comment box, to take out their frustration in life against someone more successful and famous than them. It all started with few of them expressing disagreements, but later a bunch of monkeys joined in taking advantage of the opportunity to shower a woman with abuses online.

It probably gives them a sadistic pleasure and an ego boost to tear someone else down. I don’t think the abusive trolls (i.e. the ‘fans’) were trying to prove anything, the observation made by Parvathy on the above film’s fans have proved her so right.

We can set aside the trolls as sexually frustrated losers, taking the cover of the internet to abuse the actor, but the shocker came from Joby George.

Joby, the owner of Goodwill Entertainment and the producer of the Mammootty starrer “Kasaba”, had offered a job for Printo, the accused arrested by police for issuing rape threat against Parvathy, through his comment. This means that he supports, instigated and supported the abusers, and probably running job consultancy for all the abusers.

We live in a democratic country, where the system follows the tagline – no one is guilty until proven, no one is innocent until proved.

In the case of Printo, it’s not proved by the court that he is guilty or not, and offering him a job sends a message to all other abusers that they can abuse woman celebrities, and there will be some genius waiting with a job offer for them too.

I strongly feel that the Malayalam superstars should distance from such ‘fans’ who are taking cover to abuse woman and vent out their frustration in life. No matter what one will say, this is a clear case of cyber-bullying, not a bunch of people reacting after being hurt with their emotional sentiments.

The Internet gives the sense of anonymity and immunity to attack and abuse without actually having to face the person, and most of them think that they will not get caught.