A few weeks ago, an erroneously-titled news report led people to believe that our esteemed judiciary thinks women past a certain age cannot be raped. ‘Forceful sex on menopausal woman not rape, says Delhi High Court’ read the >report . A mischievous attempt at clickbait, if nothing else. But of course, that didn’t stop people everywhere from airing loud their opinions. The headline has since been changed, after a few patient people, the last remaining of an age on social media, pointed it out.
Here are the facts of the case. A woman, aged around 65-70 was allegedly raped by the accused. He was convicted by a lower court to 10 years RI, but the Delhi HC, looking at available records, decided to acquit him on the grounds that it wasn’t rape, but rough sex, i.e. forceful sex. The judgment never stated that a menopausal woman cannot be raped. The court’s mistake? Assuming that the legal correspondent who wrote the report may understand legalese, and actually present the facts of the case as is.
Now, there are still issues with the judgment, such as assumed consent, and the lack of legal reason as to why menopause was even mentioned. But the reason this snowballed into an issue was first, the badly written report, and second, an unwillingness to comprehend what actually happened by a large number of people on social media.
This isn’t the first time something has been misunderstood by social pundits. The Internet, in a way very reminiscent of a gossipy society party, is perfect for spreading rumours and using just the right keywords to make people believe that anything can happen. The most classic example — classic because an Internet phenomenon’s lifespan is about the same as that of a mayfly (24 hours, in case you were wondering) — is the identification of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect. Reddit, which can often turn quite righteous, decided to identify the suspects, and one person was wrongly identified. The person had been missing for a while and eventually, his body was found floating on the Providence River. But, by then, a number of media outlets had picked up his name from the site and used it before official confirmation.
Ethics in media apart, to quite an extent, responsibility in reporting is also in the hands of the consumers of said media. I am not assigning blame here, but it is easy to take an issue and spin it in a way that suits a particular person. In an age where, to bring in a cliche, information is so easily available, maybe, we as consumers of media should also be more careful when we share something with just a click. Not because we may be propagating something that is wrong, but even worse, something that has been misrepresented.
