Main Article Content
Abstract
Social media is the most modern and sophisticated means of communication. From the news items that we see in daily newspapers and other channels of information world over, and from the conclusions of different research projects, it is confirmed that social media breeds violence. Social media is difficult to control. It is the product of the Internet. Influence of the social media started increasing roughly after 2010. Governments world over didn’t recognise its power in the initial stages. But after a few incidents even governments started exploiting it for their own benefit. Misinformation campaigns were launched by governments in many countries using social media apps. Russia, China and North Korea are prominent examples in this case. India has witnessed many such incidents of social media ‘sponsored’ violence. WhatsApp limited number of messages that can be forwarded by a person in India, at a time, to just five groups or persons, whereas it has brought down this number from 100 to 20 in other parts of the world. This indicates the seriousness of the situation in India. This paper traces the origin of social media and internet, enumerates different types of social media and discusses the various incidents of violence to prove the statement that social media breeds violence.