April 1, 2009

If you think Social Media like Orkut, Facebook, MySpace and Hi5 are changing the face of India, there’s a far more worrying trend you should warn your kids about.

Pinstorm, the leading digital marketing firm announced today that its online tracking of internet usage and trends has disclosed a worrying direction that indicated anti-social media growing at an even faster rate than social media.

“It’s no longer small now”, said Mahesh Murthy, Founder and CEO of Pinstorm. “There are unmistakable signs that the rate of growth of anti-social media is higher than that of fast-growing social media.”

“The evidence is apparent. Lack of online civility, virtual ragging, webcam censorship and even VOIP bleeping are becoming more prevalent”, Mr. Murthy added. Anti-Social Media is the darker side of the Social Media movement and there are steps to curb the menace with the recent strengthening of the IT act in India.

Antisocial Media refers to emerging disruptive activities that include VOIP bleeping, Facebook friendstalking, Orkut scrapbombing, Forum flatlining and SMS barraging. It can also mean to include Hi5 hijacking and unscrupulous Twitter following.

The Pinstorm – Google search trend report here sheds more light when focused on deeply: specifically on some unnerving regional and causative elements.

Anti-social media growth pipped that of social media in India some time in 2008 but only now has taken a strong lead:

This chart goes deeper into regional trends:

Here it seems that Delhi is the leader in anti-social media behaviour in the country – followed by Maharashtra and thereafter by Gujarat and then Karnataka. West Bengal seems to be, given its recent Tata Nano upheavals, still the leader in social media. Gujarat, especially, given its relatively smaller population compared to other geographies seems to have a disproportionately high abundance of anti-social media. This indicates perhaps the BJP / RSS combine’s recent efforts in online politicking.

Surprisingly, Mangalore seemed to have the disproportionately highest occurrence of anti-social media behaviour in India. This can almost certainly be linked to the activities of the right-wing Sri Ram Sene and their attacks on ladies in pubs. This is followed by Surat (hotbed of anti-minority riots) and then Delhi – the capital of the Indian political system.

Commenting on this, Ansoo Gupta, Head, Global Business, Pinstorm said, “The data brings some facts and figures to support the feelings one has about various cities and places in the country. Anti-Social Media is a disease that must be fought on all fronts immediately. The IAMAI (Internet And Mobile Association of India) must take immediate steps in collaboration with state IT departments to reduce this menace and make Social Media win this battle for the growth of the internet industry in India.”