The colonial penal code never imagined a world where software, not a human, amplifies hatred. Section 197 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita now penalises ‘acts prejudicial to national integration’ carried out through electronic communication.
Mumbai: Last fortnight in Nepal, a seven-second clip showing a puff of tear gas and a gunshot ringtone went viral, causing millions to flood the streets. The footage was fake, but the chaos was real. This event was a classic example of a “viral riot,” a new form of mass mobilization where digital misinformation can trigger real-world conflict in minutes.
This isn’t just a Nepalese problem, we have seen this pattern repeating in Bangladesh, Indonesia and elsewhere. However, India now lives under a new criminal law architecture—the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam—that treats a viral video not as a harmless meme but as a potential crime scene. Under these laws, the platform hosting the video can be considered a co-accused.
THE NEW PHYSICS OF MOBILIZATION
Traditional rallies need money and microphones. A viral riot needs only a one-megabyte clip that crosses the seven-second attention threshold. If a viewer stays beyond this point, the clip is shoved into the “For-You” stratosphere by the algorithm. Activists have decoded this rule, choreographing their clips with sounds or emojis to spike retention. The algorithm then pushes the clip to millions, including those who never asked for politics.
The state, driven to chasing WhatsApp forwards, suddenly finds itself without an organizer or a fixed address to target. All that exists is a cloud of seven-second hashes ricocheting between Mumbai and Mountain View faster than any district magistrate can issue a prohibitory order.
THE NODAL OFFICER WHO NEVER SLEEPS
Under the old CrPC, a police officer had to physically serve a paper summons, often after weeks of foot-dragging. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita changes that forever. Section 63 says an e-summons—sent by e-mail, SMS, or even WhatsApp—carries the same legal weight the moment the blue tick appears. This shift from physical to digital communication dramatically accelerates the legal process.
In practical terms, the minute a violent clip begins to trend, the platform’s nodal officer receives a smartphone ping that starts a 24-hour criminal countdown. If the clip contains synthetic audio—say, a movie gun-shot passed off as live firing—the officer stares at a cognizable offence under Section 353(1)(b) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, punishable by up to three years in prison.
This provision holds platforms accountable for content that deliberately deceives users. Ignore the e-summons and the officer himself can be arrested without a warrant for “disobedience to a public servant’s order” under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. This introduces a new level of personal liability for corporate executives and is designed to eliminate the foot-dragging that was common under the old laws.
WHEN THE ALGORITHM BECOMES THE ABETTOR
The colonial penal code never imagined a world where software, not a human, amplifies hatred. Section 197 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita now penalises “acts prejudicial to national integration” carried out through electronic communication. Lawyers say the word “communication” is wide enough to cover both the upload and the algorithmic decision that shoves the clip onto three million extra screens.
This is a critical legal reinterpretation. If internal emails show that engineers deliberately tweaked the rage-emoji weight to boost watch-time, the company’s conduct moves from negligence to outright abetment under Section 49 BNS—and safe-harbor protection evaporates. This marks a significant departure from the previous legal framework, where platforms were generally immune from liability for third-party content.
EVIDENCE THAT EMAILS ITSELF
Until last year, prosecutors had to drag system administrators to court clutching hard disks wrapped in brown paper. The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam declares that an electronic record is “primary evidence” if it carries a hash-value and a time-stamp certificate signed by the system admin.
A hash-value is a digital fingerprint, and a time-stamp certificate proves when the record was created, making the data immutable and verifiable. A police inspector can now demand the audit log that shows when the gunshot clip was first ingested, when it was recommended, and when it was finally removed. Refuse to hand over the certified hash-log and the platform faces obstruction charges under §223 BNSS (up to one year in jail) and automatic loss of safe-harbor under §79 of the IT Act.
THE SYNTHETIC-AUDIO TRAP
Most platforms watermark images, but few fingerprint audio, creating a dangerous blind spot. Section 354(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita targets cyber-stalking through “computer-generated … audio” that instills fear. A national anthem remix with a fake gunshot qualifies the moment it’s algorithmically pushed to viewers.
If the platform can’t prove it ran an audio-fingerprint check, both the uploader and the platform can face abetment charges and a three-year jail term. One upload, plus algorithmic re-targeting, can be considered persistent intimidation.
TRACEABILITY ON STEROIDS
The 2021 IT Rules already require apps to identify the “first originator” within 72 hours. The new Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita turns the screw: §223 BNSS makes wilful disobedience an arrestable offense. Short-video apps can’t hide behind end-to-end encryption slogans; a single SQL query will reveal the original uploader.
Complying leads to the uploader being booked for “causing false alarm,” a crime that keeps them in custody for up to 60 days under §187 BNSS.
THE EU LEVERAGE
India is not the only jurisdiction rewriting the rules. The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) compels very large platforms to audit how their recommendation engines fuel “civic unrest” and to publish the risk-mitigation steps. If the EU Commission agrees, a company must throw open its algorithmic black box to EU auditors.
No tech giant wants the engineering headache of running one model for Europe and another for everyone else, so any dial turned in Brussels—say, damping rage-emoji weight or throttling trend velocity—quietly rolls out in Bangalore a few weeks later. Indian regulators can now piggy-back on investigations launched 6,000 kilometres away.
A HASH-BANK IN THE MAKING
The electronics ministry is quietly building a shared repository of “viral violence” hashes—a digital blood-bank for crisis content. Every major app will recognize and throttle a clip before it trends. This project is legally supported by Section 94 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, which allows police to demand “any document or thing” in electronic form. Refusing to share the hash is penalized like hiding a murder weapon.
COOLING THE TREND WITHOUT COOLING SPEECH
Nepal has proposed a six-hour “trending cooling-off” window: AI flags a surging hashtag as violence-prone, and the algorithm stops pushing it for half a day. Critics call it pre-censorship, while supporters see it as the digital equivalent of a lathi charge without the bruises.
India is considering this tool with two guardrails. First, the pause applies only to amplification, not to a citizen’s right to post or see content. Second, the final decision must be made by a human review panel that includes an independent retired judge, with published reasons for their decision.
A BARGAIN FOR THE DIGITAL AGE
The street and the screen now feed off each other in real time. Algorithms designed to keep thumbs scrolling have become the unseen choreographers of reality. The only way to break the cycle is a three-way contract: citizens must accept that virality is not a licence to incite; platforms must accept that engineering choices have civic consequences; and the state must prove that its emergency orders are narrow, published, and open to appeal.
Kathmandu’s seven-second scare lasted one evening, but it previewed a future in which every city carries an invisible detonator in its pocket. India still has the breathing space to write the manual for defusing it—before the next gunshot ringtone syncs to our own “For-You” page and the nodal officer realises that the blue tick on his WhatsApp is no longer a read receipt; it is a summons to accountability.
Brijesh Singh is a senior IPS officer and an author (@brijeshbsingh on X). His latest book on ancient India, “The Cloud Chariot” (Penguin) is out on stands. Views are personal.
