It seems the State government ‘Likes’ Netizen Police, a group on the Facebook.
The group in the social networking site has become a movement strong enough to make the State Government take notice of it. The group has many stories of online frauds and cyber crimes that the State Government is now actively following them up.
“Reports on the basis of complaints lodged at the group are being prepared, which will be forwarded to the cyber cell. Cases will be registered against those found committing online crimes,” Minister for Home Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan told The Hindu.
For a group that has 16,713 members, information is flowing thick and fast. One of the live discussion threads in the group is about SMS frauds. There are 160 comments ranting against such conmen.
The highlight is that the administrators have compiled the posts and made a document listing out 102 specific cases. The document details the number from which the fraud text messages were sent, the origin State and the service provider. An interesting pattern in the document is that the majority of the fraud messages were punched in from Delhi.
A similar compilation has also been made about those who muddy the Facebook by using it to hawk religious hatred. The list has 133 entries, complete with the details of people who have posted them.
“It is seen that most of the users withdraw the post immediately after they are reported in the group. We have forwarded report suggesting case against seven persons who continued to post such messages,” said J. Jayanath, Superintendent of Police, Internal Security, who thought up the concept.
The use of electronic media for spreading rumours and causing unrest in society has shot up alarmingly. Recently, the government was forced to restrict the number of messages sent to curb rumours against people from the North East. “Investigations showed that rumour mongers even used to spread false text messages through Bluetooth to bypass the restriction imposed by the service provider,” said Mr. Jayanath.
The Minister has suggested intensifying the activities of the online group in near future, while the officers involved are planning to establish a communication network with their counterparts in other States to share information and initiate action. For example, the list of telephone numbers in Delhi from which phishing text messages were sent has been sent to the officers concerned there.
