Tag: Facebook Live

Fact Check: Times Now Report Presents Local Politician as Cleric of a Jammu Mosque

The entire report is shot in a mosque, where a man who is introduced as the cleric can be seen speaking to a few attendees about the importance of the Indian national flag.

On August 10, Times Now tweeted a video report by journalist Pradeep Dutta. The entire report is shot within the confinement of a mosque where an alleged cleric of the mosque can be seen speaking to a few attendees about the importance of the Indian national flag.

In the seven-minute-long video report, we see the Times Now journalist speak with the alleged cleric as well as the attendees, who are very “enthusiastically” listening to the sermons. A total of nine people can be seen in attendance, among which a few appear to be senior citizens.

The same report has also been shot in Hindi as well and was tweeted by Times Now Navbharat on August 10. In the Hindi report, the Times Now reporter refers to the man as “maulana“. In this report, at the 2:20 minute mark, the reporter asks the man if there’s any external pressure on him or if he’s being forced to raise the flag. The man responds by saying that there is no pressure on him at the moment.

This video report has been re-shared twice (here and here) by Times Now Navbharat on August 12.

Analysis of the footage

When one looks at the reportage carefully, the following observations can be made:

  1. The reporter is directly at the centre of the story. He narrates as the sermon is being given.
  2. He interrupts the event and interviews the alleged cleric and members of the audience. It is odd for a reporter to interrupt a public event while he/she is covering in order to take bytes.
  3. The reporter’s conversations with both the alleged cleric and locals comes across as forced, with the reporter leading the conversation.

These elements when seen together portray an uncharacteristic way of reporting a public event.

Local politician, not a cleric

We looked at the comments under the tweets of Times Now. A reply by user Asif Iqbal Butt came to our notice. The user wrote in bullet points alleging that the man seen in the video report is not a cleric but a person affiliated with a political party. In a subsequent reply, the user also hinted that the video is from the Doda district of Jammu.

Taking this clue, we reached out to a few local journalists who identified the alleged cleric as a local politician. As per journalists, the man seen in the video is Mohammad Rafi Sheikh alias Pinka and he works for the Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP). They also told us that the video report by Times Now has been shot in the Hidayi Phagsoo Jama Masjid (جامع مسجد ھدای پھگسو).

To probe further, we performed several keyword searches on Facebook and came across news reports featuring Mohammad Rafi. A report from November 2021 mentions Rafi as the ‘Block General Secretary of the APNI Party’. In an interview from September 2021, Rafi can be seen standing next to J&K Apni Party supremo Altaf Bukhari.

Alt News reached out to Mohammad Rafi Sheikh to understand what transpired behind the scene. Speaking to Alt News over a telephone call, Rafi admitted that he is a local politician affiliated with the JKAP. “I am not a cleric, imam or scholar or member of any mosque,” said Rafi.

Rafi also alleged that the Indian Army along with the reporter of Times Now had forced him to raise the flag inside the mosque and give those sermons. We also spoke with Abdul Kabeer (red box below), the naiyib imam (deputy cleric) who was present at the mosque during the time of the shooting. He agreed with the statement that was given to us by Rafi.

Abdul Kabeer (red box) deputy cleric of the mosque.

Alt News also came across a 26-minute-long interview given to the Chenab Times by the locals who were present at the mosque. Both Rafi and the naiyib imam also speak during this interview. They reiterate that they were forced by the army to raise the flag inside the mosque.

“On the evening of August 7, a police officer came to my house and asked me to pose with the flag. He told me I am an OGW (Over Ground Worker) and I need to comply, I did as I was told. The next day that is on August 8, army officials called me and asked me about my whereabouts. I told them that I am at my home,” said Rafi.

He further added, “The next time they called me, I was sitting at the shop of my tailor friend near my house. They came to the shop and took me and my friend aside. We were told to speak about the national flag, so we agreed… They gathered a few people and told us to speak about it inside the mosque… We all were reluctant but we complied.”

Alt News spoke with tailor Shafqat (green box below) who was there with Mohammad Rafi. He corroborated Rafi’s claim. “We are villagers, we don’t know what transpires between the army and OGWs. I saw the army and I got scared so I did as I was told,” said Shafqat Hussain.

Tailor Shafqat Hussain (green box).

An army man is indeed visible in the English report of Times Now at the 3:15 minute mark. According to a local, it is not common for the army to be standing outside the mosque. Alt News reached out to the senior army officials stationed in Phagsoo, but they refused to speak on the record and asked us to reach out to the army PRO. The response from the PRO was that they were not aware of such developments.

Army man visible in the English report of Times Now.

We also came across a Facebook Live where speaking to journalist Shakeel Raja, a local politician says that an army major told him that it was Rafi’s idea to shoot the video inside the mosque premise. The politician also claims to have spoken with Pinka, with Pinka stating that he did what he did due to coercion. [Watch from 3:10 minutes.]

Alt News has reached out to journalist Pradeep Dutta for his comments on the allegations made by Rafi and the others who were present at the scene. Dutta disconnected our call and has not responded to our messages. The story will be updated if and when Pradeep decides to respond to these allegations.

While there are differing accounts on whether the raising of the national flag inside a mosque in Phagsoo was an act of coercion, it is clear that Times Now misrepresented a location politician as a cleric in its broadcast. Mohammad Rafi Sheikh alias Pinka is not a cleric or a scholar of the mosque. He’s a politician affiliated with the Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP).

This article was originally published on Alt News.

Assam Youth Arrested For Live Streaming Spat With Police

Partha Pratim Boruah used Facebook Live to document police highhandedness on February 12, following which he was arrested on February 14.

Partha Pratim Boruah used Facebook Live to document police highhandedness on February 12, following which he was arrested on February 14.

Partha Pratim Boruah, the man who was arrested for live streaming his altercation with the police. Credit: Facebook

Partha Pratim Boruah, the man who was arrested for live streaming his altercation with the police. Credit: Facebook

 

New Delhi: This past week, three Facebook Live videos shot in Assam, became fairly popular on social media. The videos featured a Guwahati-based youth, Partha Pratim Boruah.

Boruah first went live on February 12 to relay – partly in English and in Assamese – alleged police highhandedness during a routine checking in the city’s Zoo Road area.

Boruah, 24 – a student who also doubled up as a sales consultant of a Kolkata-based two-wheeler accessories company – could be heard towards the end of the video letting out a few words of abuse at the unfriendly traffic policemen. The police demanded that he hand over the documents of his bike, but what he basically questioned throughout was their power under the law to ask him for it.

He argued that as per law, they had no right to take away his vehicle’s documents unless there was a sub-inspector present on site.

Reminding them of the law apparently didn’t go down well with the policemen, none of whom was a sub-inspector. One of them then took away the keys of his bike. All the while, Partha was live on Facebook.

He questioned the policemen about a vehicle that had the Assam police logo but did not have a number plate and also pointed out that the personnel who took away his bike keys had no name plate on his uniform, a violation of law.

As per the police, Boruah thereafter left the place, leaving behind his vehicle.

A day later, he apologised, again in a Facebook video, for using abusive words, but reiterated his right as a common man to ask questions, even to security personnel.

The third live video featured Boruah inside his office, where the police landed up looking for him on February 14.

In that video, Boruah said that a policeman kicked his phone, stepped on it with the intention of breaking it but could only damage it partly. After a bit of disturbance – apparently due to that act – he continued live streaming. Sometime later, an armed policeman wearing a black mask was identified by him, who then reacted angrily before walking out of the frame.

In that video, Boruah kept talking on another phone to a number of people including someone he identified as the state human rights commission chief. She was heard telling him about his rights as a common man.

After some time, the scene moved to the Geeta Nagar police station where he told viewers that he had been arrested.

Boruah was taken into custody under section 294 of the IPC for committing an obscene act in a public place, and under section 353 for causing assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging duty.

He was released on February 17 on bail after his lawyer furnished a bond of Rs 10,000 at the Gauhati high court.

However, between February 12 and till his arrest on February 14, his first video went viral in Assam with over three lakh hits. Boruah became the talking point of local news channels.

In response to reporters’ queries, he said, “I am a young student who is studying and working part-time to make ends meet and because of few individuals my career now stands in peril. Is it such a severe crime to ask questions to a public servant?”

“I was really appalled when the policeman snatched my keys. Also, how would I know if he isn’t some bogus policeman for he was not even clad in a proper uniform which seemingly is a violation of the uniform conduct. This was another reason I decided to go ahead with the video,” he was heard saying.

Alongside visiting TV stations in Guwahati to tell his story, the youth kept his viewers hooked on his Facebook page by informing them about all his subsequent moves.

Asked about the case by the news channels, city commissioner of police Hiren Chandra Nath said Partha was riding his bike without wearing a helmet, a violation of traffic laws. When the police at the check post gestured towards him to stop, he did not, and only stopped his vehicle some meters away.

“The boy showed the tendency of a chronic violator of law; so the constable had to take away his keys to keep him halted until the arrival of a sub-inspector,” he said, adding, the youth was abusive. Boruah denied all the allegations except the last one.

However, without delving into the binaries of what is right or wrong, legal or otherwise, what made it interesting was the use of social media by the youth to continue communicating with a large number of people across the state on the developments of the case.

He also succeeded in showing an aggressive side to policing which helped him turn many of those who watched his video into his sympathisers. Words of support kept pouring in throughout the time he went live.

Screenshot of Boruah's post.

Screenshot of Boruah’s post.

At one point, around 12.48 pm on February 14, he posted on Facebook that he was not being allowed to go live during his medical checkup.

A respondent to that post, seemingly by a friend who knew his phone number, said he just recharged Partha’s number so that he could continue going live on FB. The friend gave out the number there, seemingly for others to do so too.

Also, thanks to the videos, a large number of youth reportedly arrived at the Geeta Nagar police station to oppose his arrest.

What draws attention to this case is that the state police seemed to have gone after the youth mainly for live streaming an interaction, albeit an unfriendly one, with a public servant on duty, and questioning him as a common man.

After all, such small spats during routine checking in the state are commonplace and do not lead to arrests. Maintaining law and order, the mandate given to the police, needs them to be firm but certainly not to be ill-mannered, a point he clearly scored against the policemen.

If you look at the trend of live streaming globally, some similar cases of spat with police leading to arrest have come to light, particularly in the US, including one where the police were seen shooting at a black man in July last year in Minnesota.

However, Boruah’s case is the first in the northeast where live streaming was used an important component of the proceedings of a minor spat with policemen gone wrong.

Last checked, Boruah uploaded a post on February 21, first time after he was released from custody, where he thanked people for their “overwhelming” response.

Interestingly, he also announced his “official page” on the virtual platform calling it “CommonManOfficialPartha.”

Watch: Siddharth Varadarajan Discusses if Government Should Release Evidence of Surgical Strikes

He takes questions from viewers in realtime in this Facebook Live session.

Given the increasingly clamorous debate over evidence of India’s surgical strikes, Siddharth Varadarajan, one of the founding editors of The Wire, discusses the case for the government releasing more information to the Indian public. He takes questions from viewers in realtime in this Facebook Live session.

You can watch our previous Facebook Live on surgical strikes here and read two initial analyses of the situation by Varadarajan here and here. For regular updates on our Facebook live video chats, like our page.

Ethical and Legal Concerns Arise Over Violence and Disturbing Content on Facebook Live

Live streaming may be a key social activism tool but anxiety persists over the nature of content that isn’t regulated by traditional broadcasting standards

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen on stage during a town hall at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, September 27, 2015. Picture taken February 27, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Stephen Lam

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen on stage during a town hall at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, September 27, 2015. Picture taken February 27, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Stephen Lam

New York/Washington: A live, ten-minute video of the aftermath of a police officer shooting a black man in Minnesota was the latest example of the riveting power of video streaming and the complex ethical and policy issues it raises for Facebook Live and similar features.

The graphic video taken by the victim’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and broadcast on her Facebook page shows Philando Castile covered in blood in the driver’s seat of a car as the officer points a gun into the vehicle.

By July 7 evening, the footage had more than 4.4 million views and together with another police shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, topped the items on Facebook’s “Newswire”, which promotes stories of broad interest.

“While I hope we never have to see another video like Diamond’s, it reminds us why coming together to build a more open and connected world is so important – and how far we still have to go,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his account.

Facebook this year has made its Live feature, which allows anyone to broadcast a video directly from their smartphone, a central component of its growth strategy. Rivals Twitter and Alphabet’s YouTube are also pushing live video as a new frontier in internet content.

While traditional TV broadcasters are subject to “decency” standards overseen by the Federal Communications Commission – and have a short delay in their broadcasts to allow them to cut away from violent or obscene images – internet streaming services have no such limitations.

That easy accessibility and openness are fostering a new type of intimate, personal broadcasting that proponents said can be extraordinarily powerful, as evidenced by the demonstrations that began shortly after the Minneapolis video.

But critics said the lack of regulation can allow a somewhat cynical exploitation of tragedy.

Facebook and others can “rush forward and do whatever they think will get them clicks and users” without concerns for potential legal consequences, said Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at the University of Miami who helps run the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. She would like companies to do more to prevent dissemination of such content and advocates on behalf of victims of revenge porn – when sexually explicit images or video are distributed without consent.

Indeed, internet companies enjoy broad protections under federal law for content users posting on their services. Merely hosting third-party content that is objectionable or even illegal does not expose those companies to litigation as long as they adopt reasonable takedown policies.

The companies do enforce their own terms of service, which restrict many types of images. They rely heavily on users to report violations, which are then reviewed by employees or contractors for possible removal.

Political pressure

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Digital Terrorism and Hate project, said live video provides unprecedented opportunity to seize public awareness and cultivate political pressure on a topic such as police brutality.

But Cooper said the technology also raises concerns. “The availability of a live broadcast, unencumbered, becomes a horrendous tool in the hands of a terrorist.”

Facebook said last month it was expanding the team dedicated to reviewing live content and staffing it 24 hours a day. The company would also test the monitoring of broadcasts that go viral or are trending even before they are reported, giving Facebook a way to stop offending broadcasts quickly, just as a TV network might do.

In Wednesday night’s shooting in Falcon Heights, a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, the footage was taken offline for about an hour, leading to outrage on social media. It was then restored with a warning labelling it as “disturbing”.

“We’re very sorry that the video was temporarily inaccessible,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement. “It was down due to a technical glitch and restored as soon as we were able to investigate.”

Details of the technical glitch were not immediately known.

Facebook’s push into live streaming assures that such violent or otherwise disturbing events would not be the last.

About 1.65 billion people used Facebook monthly as of March 31, spending at least 50 minutes per day on the social media platform. In Facebook’s most recent quarterly earnings, it reported a 50% surge in revenue, handily beating Wall Street expectations as its promotion of live video won new advertisers and encouraged existing ones to increase spending.

Facebook pays some companies, including Reuters, to produce content for Facebook Live.

The Minnesota shooting followed other violent events that were streamed live on the internet and went viral.

Just last month, a 28-year-old Chicago man, Antonio Perkins, filmed himself on Facebook Live spending time with his friends outside when shots rang out. The graphic video showed Perkins falling to the ground and what appears to be blood on the grass.

Days earlier, there was a double homicide in France in which the killer later took to Facebook Live to encourage more violence in a 12-minute clip.

In April, an 18-year-old woman was charged after she live streamed her friend’s rape on Twitter’s Periscope. In May, a young woman in France recorded herself on Periscope as she threw herself under a train.

(Reuters)