Today I came across a very disturbing news of health workers being attacked while they visited a suspected Covid-19 infected patients house in India (and many other countries). The cause of attack has been attributed to misinformation being spread on a Whatsapp group. This news is not a one off incidence of Internet services leading to a social unrest.

As a solution, often Indian government lean to shutdown the internet in such places during riots, or any kind of social unrest. Indian government did the same in Kashmir recently as a per-emptive measure in 2019. This was criticized and our Supreme court went on to say Internet is a fundamental right.

So here lies my dilemma. On one hand Internet - which of course includes Facebook, Insta, whatsapp, Signal etc services - is very important and considered as a fundamental right, but it is also causing harm to the society. How can such problem be solved, which from my vantage point is becoming more frequent? Can it be justified to shutdown internet or censor internet during crisis? If not, then how to tackle this problem from a governance point of view when you know the cause from where the problem is arising.

I am giving examples from India, but this problem is becoming very global according to me, and would like to hear your views from a global perspective, is there some country handling this in a better way? And I humbly request, please do not indulge in any political arguments.

[1] https://www.news18.com/news/india/four-arrested-in-indore-for-attacking-spitting-on-health-officials-during-covid-19-contact-tracing-2561659.html (Whatsapp part mentioned towards the end of article)