| Type | Moral panic, mass hysteria, lynchings, mob violence |
|---|---|
| Cause | Fake news spread via social media, especially WhatsApp |
| Deaths | ≥ 23 |
| Arrests | ≥ 600 |
The Indian WhatsApp lynchings are a spate of mob-related violence and killings following the spread of rumours, primarily relating to child-abduction and organ harvesting, via the WhatsApp message service. The spate of lynchings commenced in May 2017 with the killing of seven men in Jharkhand, but did not become a matter of national attention until the beginning of the following year. Fake messages customised with locally specific details are circulated along with real videos attached to fake messages or claims.
In almost all of the lynching locations, no child abductions had been recorded in the previous three months.[1]
The majority of the attacks have occurred deep within the interior regions of villages. The lynch mobs included men, women and children. In some cases the mobs were composed largely of illiterate or poorly educated men that were unemployed or working as day labourers as well as being under the influence of alcohol at the time of the attack.[2] In at least some of the cases prime instigators have used child-abduction fears to stir up the violence and settle old scores.