Boys & Girls, who wants to be a gangsta?

Video sharing apps are the new seat of violence-inspiring content as police, counsellors and cyber experts grapple with excitable kids and teens deriving validation from pretend-brutality and live aggression

On August 1, the Navghar police in Mulund rounded up five teenagers and young men in their 20s after a video surfaced of them shooting each other with a gun. The police officer, who warned and counselled the group, on condition of anonymity, told mid-day, “When the video reached us, we didn’t know if the gun was fake. When we nabbed them, we realised it was a toy gun. There were girls with them as well, who behaved in the videos as if they were molls of gangsters. What emerged from our interaction with them was that they did it to experience a thrill. Enacting such a video and then sharing it on social media was exciting for them.” 

A 21-year-old resident of Bhandup was the brain behind the video’s script. “Since we were little, I’ve seen bhaigiri play out in our neighbourhood. It must have influenced me. When TikTok became popular, I started creating videos too. In them, I became the bhai. It’s satisfying when you see that people like your content. After the platform was banned in India, we shifted to using other video apps.” 

Notorious for blatantly abusive language and content, Youtuber Vikas Fhatak (centre), aka Hindustani Bhau, says that when kids tell him, we want to be like you, he advises them to become IPS officers and engineers. Pic/Shadab Khan

For this video, he says he had no idea that he would get into trouble. “We conceived a story about a gangster, and borrowed a toy gun from a friend. I didn’t know that flashing a gun is a crime. I will be more careful in future.” The police official who had counselled the youth, explained that no one factor is responsible for this behaviour. It’s the collective result of years of conditioning, the environment the said individual has grown up in, the attention and care they receive from parents, and of course, the craze of social media fame. 

Police officials say such incidents have now become common. Last week, in Pune, two minors were arrested for putting up display pictures of them posing with swords. A 22-year-old man was booked by the Bandra police for cutting his birthday cake with a sword. A case was filed against him under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act. In another instance, on July 14, kids were seen brandishing swords while cutting a cake. The police detained two children from Ulhasnagar in the case. Social media is full of Reels and videos of teens acting out scenes from Ram Gopal Verma’s Satya, or the Kannada film, KGF. Videos of kids and teens torturing cats and dogs are easily available for viewing. Family members have observed typically aggressive behaviour in such cases. Is it the content they consume—violent movies or games that glorify violence, videos by other controversial creators, content from the dark web—that’s influencing them? Or could this be a tactic to achieve what they desire the most—instant validation in the form of Likes, hearts and comments.

Snapshots of two Instagram accounts where young men are enacting the brandishing is guns and swords, to flaunt their swag and appear powerful. One of them has the tagline, Gunehgaar toh sab bante hain, hame toh bas yaadgaar ban na hai 

Zirak Marker, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, is aware from experience that a market for violent videos that perpetuate similar behaviour exists. “There is voyeurism at play. If people weren’t consuming such content, children wouldn’t be making it. There is a lot of boredom among the youth, and anything different, odd, or something that feels like a risk, excites them. Sometimes, this is also connected to a high level of substance abuse.” Marker sees a connect between the use of drugs, and spending hours navigating the dark web where users have access to banned material. “They even have access to, and watch videos of how they can be self-cutters,” he says of the practice of self-harm that’s often associated with dealing with frustration, anger and emotional pain. But, the majority of cases that Marker has seen involve teens torturing animals and cats. Data available on domestic violence and child abuse has often revealed that a large number of animals are targeted by those who abuse their children or spouses. The reasons range from wanting to shock people for amusement; impressing others with your capacity for violence and to derive pleasure from causing suffering or sadism. “They receive instant validation when these videos get attention. Their personal pathology is impacted by many things—lack of effective parenting, the need for attention, and substance abuse, that causes them to be more impulsive. These are not healthy kids—they are dealing with some mental health issue of the other ,” he says, adding that many children who use violence are themselves victims of abuse, face peer pressure and grapple with low self-confidence.

A popular meme theme on social media these days is about solving small issues “by choosing violence”. It is typically meant for adults, but who decides what children watch on these platforms anyway? A 2021 study by the National Commission of Protection of Child Rights saw that 42.9 per cent of school going kids out of the 3,400 respondents, had a social media account. Almost 40 per cent of 10-year-olds had accounts on Instagram and Facebook. Both platforms are officially available to only individuals aged 13 and older. In a new initiative, Instagram will launch a default setting for teens under 16 as “private” accounts. In a study by the American Psychological Association Task Force, the reproachers said that there is limited research to indicate that an increased number of hours on social media correlates directly with aggressive behaviour, but there is literature that connects certain types of internet use with increased aggression.  For example, youth who perpetrated serious crimes were significantly more likely to have viewed violent online content. It also noted that since the internet provides unfettered access to images of real-life violence, potential for copycat violence may be increased. This means that who young browsers follow is also important.  

Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava, Brijesh Singh and Gautam Mengle

Influencer and YouTuber Vikas Fhatak, also known as Hindustani Bhau, is known for inflammatory and abusive content. Fhatak is popular with the ordinary teenager, having possibly gained a wider fan base after a mainstream hit television reality show like Bigg Boss, legitimised his position by granting him the status of contestant in its 13th season. 

mid-day asks him about the recent trend of violent videos on social media. “I believe in the law. If the police find any one going against the law, they should take action. These children [those making violent content] don’t know law, and aren’t criminals. They follow movies and web series and are encouraged. All storylines of web series these days revolve around crime. The government should keep a tab on them,” he says, adding, “If children are taught our history, they will know about Maharana Pratap, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Dr Ambedkar, and will follow them, not some bhai or gangster.” Skirting the issue of glorifying abuse himself, Fhatak days he does his bit to make children aware of India’s traditional legacy. It’s up to the celebrities what they want to teach their followers. There are many youngsters who say to me, ‘We want to be like you’. I tell them ‘No, don’t be like me. Become an IAS, IPS officer, join the Indian Army or Air Force or become a doctor or engineer’. I don’t tell them to sit in a car and abuse Pakistanis.” 

Zirak Marker and Mansi Zaveri

In a video dated August 2020, Fhatak was seen talking about thrashing people who insult Hindu Gods. He also talked about taking law in his own hands and not sparing anyone.

But Fhatak places the blame squarely on video sharing platforms like TikTok. “There were so many dialogues from gangster movies and scenes involving guns or weapons. Children have got carried away. I raised my voice against it and fortunately, TikTok was banned by the government of India. It’s not a child’s fault. Why blame him?”

Brijesh Singh, cyber security expert and Inspector General of Police at Government Of Maharashtra, says that kids are receiving all information from the Internet, which is not visible to their parents. 

It’s a world beyond their understanding and means. “Children are using all sorts of platforms, and more regulations need to exist. For example, in China, you are not allowed to show blood. So, blood if depicted, is green in colour. Also, some hard proof needs to be demanded from users to establish age. Otherwise, we are going to continue to have minors get extorted, abused, bullied and groomed by paedophiles. You can’t create a playground, and then let people sell drugs there. All internet platforms have to do more—what is being uploaded, who can see it, with whom it can be shared.” His views echo with Gautam S Mengle, executive editor, CySpy India, a platform to put out news related to cyber crime. Mengle explains that children and tweets in India are trying to emulate characters in American videos, where keeping a gun and using it is not illegal. But he also feels that it’s easy to blame the internet. “Of course, social media platforms need to be governed by stricter rules, and police departments should use their social media handles more actively [to raise awareness and surveillance]. It’s not just for acting and reacting, but prevention too. We need to make videos about what is right, wrong, what’s legal and not. The kids should see these too. But in the end, it’s the caregiver who needs to pay concentrated attention to the child.”

So does the onus lie primarily on the parental unit? Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava is mother to teenagers and also the author of Stoned, Shamed, Depressed: An Explosive Account of The Secret Lives of India’s Teens. She says that during her research, she found that teens were getting progressively violent. “They often beat up their patents and chuck things around. It’s very commonplace now.” Bhargava says it’s attention-seeking behaviour, and that introducing the child to a therapist could be the only way our. “It needs bigger intervention than what parents are capable of.” Mansi Zaveri, who runs Kidsstoppress parenting website, says that most parents live in ignorance. That not all of them are tech savvy, proves to be a hinderance. “If the kids get Likes for violence, they will create more violence. Along with that, aggressive behaviour is a constant at home. We get messages every day from parents who have been abused by their children—there are no boundaries drawn. There are too many black holes out there, and in the end, there is no option but for the parents to be more and more aware.”

40 per cent
Percentage of kids aged 10 from 3,400 surveyed who have an illegal Insta, FB account, according to a 2021 study by the National Commission of Protection of Child Rights

16
Age under which Instagram users will now by default have a “private” setting for their accounts

YouTube says

“No form of content that endangers minors is acceptable to us. We have explicit policies that prohibit this, and we quickly remove videos violating these policies when flagged to us.”  These YouTube policies expressly prohibit content showing a minor participating in dangerous activities or encouraging minors to do dangerous activities. In the first quarter of 2021, they removed over 50,00,000 videos for violations of their child safety policies. The accounts belonging to people under 13 are terminated when discovered as well—almost thousands of accounts per week as part of this process. In 2015, they created YouTube kids as a way for kids to more safely explore their interests and curiosity while providing parents more tools to control and customise the experience for their families.

Facebook says

“We remove content, disable accounts and work with law enforcement when we believe there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety when we are made aware of it. We also try to consider the language and context in order to understand the threat and take action accordingly. We have a zero tolerance policy for any threats against children or any content that endangers their safety.”

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