Maharashtra has registered 230 social media offences across the state during the lockdown for the coronavirus outbreak, with hate speeches leading the list at 122 cases, officials said on Saturday.
An official said monitoring of platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Tiktok etc. had shown that hate speeches were rising fastest among all offences on social media in the past few days.
“We have arrested 46 people, and 170 have been identified for such speeches. After hate speeches, the offences committed most on social media are spreading fake news and rumours about the Coronavirus. We have registered 77 cases for this, and 31 cases related to misinformation,” he added.
Beed district has 27 cases of hate speech, rumours, fake news and misinformation on social media platforms, while Pune rural has 17 cases. Mumbai and Kolhapur have 16 offences each.
In Beed, a man was booked after he tried to connect the coronavirus outbreak to a particular community, while in Saykheda in Nashik, a man had forwarded fake news about the number of Covid-19 patients, he said.
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