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Freedom
of expression: The changing dimensions!
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Mallika
Sherawat said her behind is “1 of a kind”
on Twitter and got away with it. With absolutely
no obscenity charges! (Let’s forget for a
while about the charges she had to face for having
worn that barely-there fishnet outfit during the
Dasavatharam event in Chennai). Kushboo said ‘premarital
sex is okay as long as both the parties involved
in it are conscientious. And the result: she was
slapped with 22 criminal cases for having been sacrilegious
against the sacred institute of marriage.
Kushboo is finally freed by the Supreme Court against
all her pending cases after four years of incessant
fighting, court hearings and tongue lashing by the
self-proclaimed moral police brigade. But I begin
to wonder, would the same comment have made the
same impact if it was made on a social networking
site like Twitter where everyone slings mud on everybody
and wash their dirty linen in public?
It might not have. For one, the internet has made
everything possible from freedom of expression to
toppling the ministerial posts over at just the
click of a mouse (or the ‘tweet’ button
perhaps). As harmless as the entire idea might |
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sound,
those ‘140 word updates’ are capable of really
creepy things – like blowing the whistle on personalities,
for instance.
From a place for over-enthused celebrities who want to
show off how enviable their life style is, Twitter has
come a long way in providing regular updates for the celeb-hungry
in the cyberspace. There is no need to wait for the movie
magazines or websites or even bloggers to dish up those
juiciest gossips about celebrities. All you need to do
is to follow the endless list of stars according to your
preference and the stars do it themselves.
You probably wouldn’t find instant info anywhere
else about Priyanka and Genelia’s location updates,
Shahrukh’s four dogs, Gul Panag’s craze for
bikes, Sonam’s instant film reviews, Farhan’s
film promotional updates or the self-styled diva Mallika’s
high profile dinner dates with Hollywood celebs. And it
also provides infinite source of news for the media, in
general. Tweets have become an integral part of voicing
and seeking opinions. While some celebrities use it as
a way to express their solidarity over pressing issues
(Gul ranks first in this), others are mostly trivial updates
– ranging from mundane weather updates to RTs (re-tweets).
The internet, as a medium of communication, has shifted
into overdrive mode providing innumerable choices for
the news-hungry ‘us’. Emails were outdone
by social networking sites and blogs, which are being
fast outdone by the shortest form of social networking
called ‘Twitter’.
What started as a social networking phenomenon, Twitter
has snowballed into something humungous - the growth of
which is beyond anybody’s prediction. The overwhelming
need to be in the scheme of things is addictive and Twitter
cashes in on exactly that.
Of all the other things, Twitter might pronounce a death
sentence to the film media, silently. The need of a third
party in delivering film news will fast become history,
especially when you can get all those news updates and
much more tidings from the celebrities themselves.
I wonder whether Kushboo would like to join the Twitter
brigade too!
Be that as it may. Don’t forget to hail the internet.
We now have unrestricted freedom of expression - something
that we found was often lacking, the hard way, even in
the democratic set up.
Respond to 
Behindwoods is not responsible for the views of columnists.
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