View: State governments should crack down on hate speech on social media

I once hailed the rise of the internet as democratising free speech, enabling ordinary voiceless people to be heard by millions.Alas, along with this empowerment has come the spread of hate speech and communal falsehoods on a once-unimaginable scale that is wrecking Indian society and national unity.Earlier, hatemongers had only a limited audience in the form of an assembled crowd or pamphlets. Big media cut out hate speech. Till the 1980s, the