Social media rife with inflammatory material in Muzaffarnagar
By Omar Rashid, The Hindu, Sept. 9, 2013

Even as the Uttar Pradesh government blamed the circulation of a fake video on social media for aggravating communal violence in Muzaffarnagar, inflamattory and communally inciting material continued to be spread widely on social networking sites and applications.

Newspapers reports, morphed with inflammatory headlines, were widely circulated through various groups on Twitter, Facebook and other mediums of social media on Monday.

Two widely circulated posts were picture clippings from the reports of Hindi daily Dainik Jagran's Muzaffarnagar edition.

A report dated September 9 was morphed with the headline, “Musalmano duara Hinduo ka katleam jaari (Muslims continue to slaughter Hindus).” However, the original headline read: “Dangiyo ko goli marne ka aadesh (Shoot at sight orders against rioters.)"

Another report of the same daily, dated September 8 was also morphed with a fake headline and widely circulated on Facebook. The original headline read, “Panchayat se laute do logo ki goli mar ke hatya (Two killed on their way back from Panchayat).” Its morphed version read: “Muzaffarnagar mein Musalmano ka aatank, Hinduo mein Khauf (Muzaffarnagar terrorized by Muslims, Hindus in fear.)"

Several posts and pictures giving exaggerated numbers of the dead and inflammatory comments were also being circulated on social media [.....]