Kerala youth forced to quit job due to social media trolls

Social media trolls often entertains viewers. But for those being trolled, it's not so, as a youngster in Kerala had to quit his job owing to the embarrassment caused by widespread trolling.

Anandapadmanabhan S, hailing from Kollam district in Kerala, was facing the embarrassment of being widely trolled on the social media. He was detained by the police on March 26 on charges of lockdown violation as he was moving around in his car at his native place Paripally, about 20 kilometres from Kollam city. Video footage of the 21-year old breaking down before the police telling that he came out to buy plantain and a circle inspector of police shouting at him and pulling him out of the car had caught much attention. A series of trolls subsequently appeared on the social media based on it.

Anandapadmanabhan said that he was forced to quit his job at the outlet of mobile service provider firm at Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram owing to the embarrassment caused by the trolls. "Owing to the widespread trolling people used to identify me easily at public places and at my workplace. I was hurt by queries over the March 26 incident. There were even queries whether I moved around on lockdown day for drug trafficking. I was forced to quit my job as I could not tolerate all these," he said.

He also said that though the police assured that posts trolling him would be removed from social media, it had not happened so far.

Meanwhile, Kollam city deputy commission of police Jossy Cheriyan said that letters were sent to the social media firms more than once. But there were no response, possibly because the trolls were mainly based on news reports and it did not contain any abusive content.

After the police official's action against Anandapadmanbhan triggered widespread protest of police highhandedness in the back drop of lockdown enforcement, the circle inspector who acted against the youth had called on him at his house and tendered an apology.