Even though Salman Khan has retracted his passionate posts from a micro-blogging site, media experts and advocates feel that he should have been responsible as the comments can be used as legal evidence against him. By Shrabasti Mallik
looks like no matter how much Salman Khan tries to clean up his act, he gets pulled into newer ones (courtesy himself). Just when people (read fellow members of the film fraternity and his devoted fans) were up and about praising Bajranji Bhaijaan, where he claims, “Main Bajrangi ka bhakt hoon aur main jhoot nahi bolta,” a bunch of tweets from bhai, put him under the scanner. What Salman thought were personal opinions regarding the impending punishment of Yakub Memom came back at him with full force.
The tweets which started with, “Brother is being hanged for tiger. Aarree whr is tigerIJ (sic),” and “Get tiger hang him. Parade him not his brother (sic),” started generating rave comments and mixed views from his fans. At a time when people hang on to every word that their favourite stars have to say, it is important that celebrities with huge fan following think twice before posting something on social media.
According to social media expert Indrojit Chowdhury it is important that one takes responsibility of the views and opinions that they wish to express. “It is more so for our celebrities,” he said. He explained that celebrities have a larger audience who look up to them. “So they have to be responsible because what they choose to write and how they write it has a lot of impact on their followers an also general people,” he added. Chowdhury feels that people now, more than ever, are aware of everything that is going around and have their own opinion about them. Therefore, the opinion that a celebrity wants to give out on social media and on Twitter should be sensitive and well-worded. “It should not go against society. And even if a celeb wants to voice a negative opinion, it should be well thought of and should go out from their official handle,” he pointed out. In these days of instant opinion-making and, superficial accounting, celebs would do well to walk the edge with caution.
Take for example the tweet where the star referred Tiger Memom to as the “lomri (fox) who ran away.” “Been wanting to tweet Tis fr 3 days n was afraid to do so but it involves a man’s n family. Don’t hang brother hang tha lomdi who ran away (sic),” he had written. Media watchers feel that he should have thought twice before posting that tweet because he, too, ran away after the infamous hit and run case that he has been embroiled in since 2002. He followed that tweet up with, “Kidhar chupa hai tigerIJ Hey koi tiger nahi hai hai hai billi aur hum ek billi ko nahi pakad sakte (Where is Tiger hiding. This is no tiger, just a cat and we can't catch the cat) (sic).” Chowdhury pointed out that ambiguous statement like this should not be encouraged. “While giving out such statements, celebs should try to explain themselves. What they say should not come across as something very casual,” he said.
The social media expert further explained that even stars are people; we make them who they are. “They are seen as icons of the society. They do not realise that even one outrageous statement from them has the potential to break into a controversy, which will ultimately affect their reputation,” he said. Even if that is of least concern to Salman he should have at least thought about the impact that his ‘frank views’ would create.
Pawan Duggal, an advocate specialised in the field of Cyberlaw and E-Commerce law, believes that stars need to be extra careful of what they post on social sites because all posts are legal evidence which can be used for and/or against them in a court of law. He said. “Any kind of comment that they make can be used for the purpose of engaging them in legal proceedings. Any lose comment can put them in a tough spot.” He explained that often celebs become emotional and post their opinion on social networking sites, which they end up repenting.
Pointing out to the fact that Salman has taken all the posts down he said that when a post is deleted from a social networking site, it is covered under law. “Deleting any post, after it is published, is a crime. A significant case can be filed for destroying electronic evidence. It is an offence under both the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act, 2000,” he added. But how can one file a charge if the post has already been deletedIJ Duggal explained that the social media mechanism has plenty of loopholes. “It allows users to save comments and posts which can later be used against the user,” he said.
Inspite of all this brand guru Prahlad Kakkar said that brand Salman is too strong to be weakened by temporary abrasion. “I feel that Salman is bold and courageous to stand by his convictions. Just because he took down his posts to avoid being dragged into controversies does not mean that he has stopped believing in what he had posted,” he said.
If you ask us, maybe Salman was trying to prove his dialogue from his movie Kick, “Main dil mein aata hoon, samajh mein nahi.”