Image curtsy: Google
Come Valentine’s Day and social media and digital messaging
services like WhasApp or Snapchat are flooded by beautiful heartwarming
messages, pictures and emogies. Nonetheless, Facebook, Instagram , Whatsapp
YouTube and also some adult networking sites may see more contributions of nude
videos, revenge porn, fake avatars
as well by jilted lovers. The other type of messages that one may get to see in
these platforms are those from moral
policing groups asking people to refrain from ‘celebrating Valentine’s day’
in Facebook, Twitter and other social
media . Such message can be ‘shared messages’, can be opinions or even can be
clear threats to ‘whoever’
‘celebrates ‘Valentine’s day’.
The question is, do we have something called Right to love? Can this right be
considered to be violated if someone
posts messages against celebration of Valentine’s day ? Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) does not specifically speak about right to love, but it flows from Article 16 (Right to marriage and family) and
Article 19 (freedom of opinion and expression). All most all countries with modern
constitution including India, UK, Singapore, US, Canada, Australia, countries
from European union including Germany, France, Spain etc do
recognize the right to choose and
communicate with dating partner,
live-in partner , same sex partners and heterosexual partners for emotional
bondage including marriage because these
countries recognize right to express opinion, freedom of speech and expression and also
right to marriage and family. While right to form family by way of live-in
relationships or homosexual
partnerships have been recognized
by several countries by way of
legitimizing the rights of children born
out of such union or adopted in such
marriages, some countries may not
recognize Live-in relationships or same sex marriages in real life .
But right to chose
emotional partners and right to communicate
to the same on cyber space are not barred by any law. For example, even when
Indian Supreme court did not apply doctrine of severability to S.377 todecriminalize same sex union and consider the rights of transgender people to
be recognized as 3rd gender people, or even when the US did not
legalize gay marriages, Facebook had
pages and groups meant for socializing and creation of emotional bonding
between LGBTQ people. Right to love is rather an
abstract idea which may be expressed when a person starts expressing the love to his/her chosen
person on a specific platform. Seen from this aspect, right to love on cyber
space may be barred only under specific circumstances, i.e., when
the same expression offends the ‘target’ person because he/she may not like to
develop any emotional relationship with the person expressing the feelings either because the relationship
falls under the concept of stalker and victim, ex lover or spouse where the
victim ex does not want to be connected with the other person anymore, or a real life acquaintance including workplace
acquaintance who had accepted to be friends with the other person expecting reasonable distance and privacy , or a stranger who may not like to be approached by way of
expressing eros. Similarly, positive reciprocation
of love on cyber space may not be offensive unless the receiver/reciprocator is
knowingly committing any mistake like that of breaking
trust of a married partner.
A person may however be deterred from exercising his/her
right to love an acclaimed criminal only when such relationship may prove to be
hazardous for the security of the nation
or for the society at large. But he/she
may not be held guilty for such love affair on cyber space when he /she can
prove his/her innocence in knowledge about the particular acclaimed criminal. He/she
may even claim compensation under
certain circumstances when such fraudulent relationship causes damage to
him/her as well. But note that I am speaking about being offended from the perspective of the receiver of the message
carrying an expression of love and not the bystanders in case such message are
posted on some one’s timelines or in a common group or in a page and it is
publicly visible. Moral policing groups against celebration of Valentine’s
day may go ahead with their propaganda of
threats of ‘devastating results’ on
the understanding that whoever exercises
right to love either by way of expressing love for some one, or by showing a status ‘in love with X’ or by even reciprocating
to such message by words or emogies or
even by thumbs up should be considered as
‘dangerous’ for the society as a whole. Some
radical groups have even come up with warning that people exercising their’
right to love’ will be straightaway married
off or they will be warned to
stop displaying (exercising their right
to) love. Understandably such
sorts of warning messages may have been made to create fear in the minds
of individuals who may belong to
orthodox patriarchal families where love marriages are not allowed or where threats of honor killings exists . Such
radical groups are targeting those
individuals who may be new generation
social media users and whose families including parents may not know their
digital whereabouts.
The question is, would such announcements by such radical
groups be considered as hate speech
or threat speech? There may be varied
opinions for this. If the statement/s show
that the commentator/s may track the
whereabouts of the persons who are
expressing their love on Facebook or any other social media on valentine’s day to commit some harm, the
speech may be considered as threat speech especially because they may indicate
violation of privacy and also intention to commit harm (even if it is arranging
marriage, which may be the ultimate the aim of the love birds). Women especially may feel threatened
because this may result in offline and online reputation damage, rape threats
(especially if it is an inter religious affair) or even grave threats
to their lives. Some , including the social
media website may consider such speech
as absolutely normal because such speech may seem to be very broad to be fitted within the meaning of hate speech or threat speech
because such speeches may be ‘general’ and may not target any specific individual,
class or community of people. But we
must not forget that online mob violence
may become extremely dangerous especially when such instigating comments or
posts are made. Concerned authorities therefore must not ignore such ‘warnings’.
But I would have been happiest would the moral policing groups
turn their attention to evils done on cyber space and send messages to the
world including possible perpetrators to refrain from creating revenge porn on the Valentine ’s Day.
In my observation I have seen that on such days several jilted lovers,
revengeful persons and stalkers may create revenge porn stuff to grossly
violate women’s reputation including rightsto privacy.
Let us join hands to prevent spreading of hate and threats
through social media. Let us grow love and not hate.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of
this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your
own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D.
(2018), “Right to love on social media on Valentine’s Day ” 10th February, 2018,
published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
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