How Hate And Bullying On Instagram Led To The Death Of A Teenager

It’s been 12 days since Pranshu Yadav, a 16-year-old queer makeup artist, took their own life. The hateful messages in the comments section of their last Instagram post still keep coming.

“You deserved that”, “Chalo ek chu**iya to kam hua”, “Next target?” are some of the brazen comments amid the ‘RIP’ ones.

On 12 November, queer makeup artist Pranshu yadav uploaded a transition video where he danced to a song and changed to a saree, makeup, and gold jewelry. On 21 November, Pranshu Yadav, who goes by the name @glamupwithpranshu on Instagram with over 35,000 followers, died by suicide.

The 16-year-old self-taught artist was supported only by their single parent, their mother. Right after their death, campaigns such as #JusticeForPranshu were run on Instagram seeking justice for him. But soon, Instagram blocked the hashtag stating it “goes against the guildies”.

While Pranshu's tragic step was covered briefly by a few news outlets, it has failed to trigger widespread outrage that would make Instagram and other social media platforms sit up and make amends.

Pranshu's death underscores how Instagram has repeatedly failed to protect LGBTQI+ individuals from bullying and harassment and has not done enough to ensure the safety of its teenage users. Young queer artists have tried their best to find a sense of belonging on Instagram but with time, they say, they have seen the platform fail.

Decode spoke to some queer artists only to find that they are all grappling with hate and menacing comments. And the platform isn’t doing much to help.

“It hit home when I heard about Pranshu…”

Twenty-eight-year-old Anwesh Sahoo, a queer visual artist and a visual designer with 9500 followers on Instagram, says he has grown a thick skin to the attacks.

Anwesh started his journey on Instagram in the year 2013, and it was different for him.

“I started my Instagram page to find belonging online because I didn’t get that offline and it has done wonders for me,” noted Anwesh. But he says it breaks his heart to see how the demographics have changed.

For Anwesh, it feels devastating to see young queer people lose their fight and life to hate.

“I did have suicidal thoughts because of the bullying and harassment I had to face in my school. Hence, the reason I came on Instagram was to find belonging because at that time the hate was offline and not much online but again, the times have changed,” he said.

Anwesh is appalled by the kind of comments that Pranshu’s post has received even after his death. “If you still have the nerve to spread hate after somebody’s death, it's the point where we have crossed all the lines.”

“Even a death doesn’t put an end to hate, does it?” he asked.

Anwesh believes that even after being on Instagram for close to 10 years if he still gets so much hate, he can only imagine what young queer artists must be facing and dealing with in their lives.

One of Anwesh’s posts that was a collaboration with Google India has several hateful comments— “We are doomed”, “I am going to stop using Google”, “Don't spread this harmful virus in society. In the name of knowing yourself, go get your freedom you are disturbing nature's balance”, “Enough of this propaganda” —are some of the samples.

The National Crime Records Bureau found that cyberstalking and cyberbullying cases in India went up by 36% after the pandemic. Research shows that people, especially women, girls, and LGBTQIA+ individuals using digital spaces, experience a lot of abuse, from online teasing to receiving threatening phone calls.

Decode couldn’t find any data in India that specifically keeps track or maintains data on cyberbullying against the queer community.

Nishtha Berry whose content revolves around queer community and feminism said she had her fair share of highs and lows on the platform. While dealing with trolls and bullies was always there for her, it was less common in the earlier days compared to now.

“These apps allowed me to express myself, connect with people, and find my place in society, but I've faced threats and bullying, making me feel unsafe to an extent I cannot describe”, said Nishtha while talking to Decode.

Remembering an incident where Instagram took down her video terming her as a bully, Berry said, “Recently, for the very first time, Instagram took down a reel of mine which was just a video of me unmasking the truth about a cab driver who mistook me for a man, started talking to me and spewing hatred towards women. I exposed him and the video was about to hit 1 million, it had more positive comments than hate but it was mass-reported by some triggered men.”

Nishtha believes that despite the strict guidelines, the platform fails to eliminate the actual bullies.

Pranshu used to follow Nishtha and her work. Though they never spoke, their death has personally hit her.

“It's disheartening to see these men passionately advocate for their religions but then spread hate online. Many have even sent rape threats, and "you shouldn't be alive" is a common cruel line thrown at LGBTQ individuals, myself included,” noted Nishtha.

“I have stopped reporting hate now”

“These platforms– Twitter, Instagram, Facebook & TikTok— continue to fail at enforcing the safeguarding of LGBTQ users from online hate speech, fail at providing transparency in the use of LGBTQ-specific user data, and fail in expressing commitments to protecting LGBTQ users,” tweeted GLAAD, the largest LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization on 15th June 2023.

They published their third annual Social Media Safety Index report which revealed that for the second consecutive year, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter all obtained low or failing scores on their platform scorecard.

“There have been multiple instances when Instagram doesn't seem to care. No action has ever been taken against those comments. I've stopped reporting hate now,” said Nishtha.

Does Instagram Understand Indian Languages?

Meta, the platform that owns Instagram, in their guidelines, has talked boldly against hate speech, bullying, and harassment but the artists from queer community think otherwise and say that they have failed to remove hateful comments even after reporting.

“Hate comments don't get removed, hateful accounts don't get removed until or unless they are mass reported. How are you going to bring those people? Am I supposed to DM random people and ask them to report a specific account?”

“I've come to a point where I've stopped reporting comments and accounts and I simply block them. But that doesn't solve the purpose,” she said.

Once Nishtha engaged with a troll and asked him to mind his own business. The troll sent her a DM saying, "You should die" "r**pe ho jana chahiye tera par karega bhi kaun?"

She tried reporting the comments but Instagram informed her that they couldn’t be removed because it’s not against the community guidelines.

Rie Raut, a Dalit Trans-Hijra activist with more than 7000 followers has reported comments, accounts, posts, and videos but 99% time they are not taken down.

According to Rie if Instagram is operating in India it should have region-specific guidelines to combat casteism, transphobia, slurs, sexism, death threats, and more. “Instagram hides behind their automated messages without taking any accountability for their inaction,” she said.

Rie vividly remembers the day they posted their transition fundraiser which got a lot of attention even from famous influencers like Kusha Kapila, Siddharth Batra, and others who shared their fundraiser on their stories. But what followed later left Rie in a deep mental trauma as they locked themselves inside their room for days.

While some of their friends reported the hate and bullying comments and Instragram took them down, Rie points out that was only possible because those has abusive words in English which the Meta platform’s algorithm could identify.

The rest of the Hindi slurs stayed.

When Rie responded to one of the trolls and wrote in anger, “You horrible bi**ch…” their account got locked.

“It took me an hour to log back in. I had to log in through Web and then my account started working again. It said if I do it again my account will be permanently suspended”

But comments like “Gay tu mar kyu nahi jata(Gay why don’t you just die)”, “Normalise being a homophobic person”, “Bikhari(begger)”, and a lot of abuses are still under Rie’s transition fundraiser.

One of the key reasons for the hate to remain on the platform and grow more, according to most of the queer people Decode has talked to, is that they have just stopped reporting the hate on Instagram because there is no action being taken.

Recently an ex-Meta engineer, Arturo Bejar, told the US Congress that he had warned Mark Zuckerberg about the safety threats to teens on Instagram. He sent out an alarming email to Mark Zuckerberg on a similar topic. He highlighted Meta's failure to curb harassment of teens, giving examples of his own daughter's experience.

Decode reached out to Meta India for their response.

“We have clear rules against hate speech and bullying, and take action on this content when we become aware of it, whether that's through our proactive detection tools or reports from our community. We’re committed to ensuring that Instagram is a positive experience for everyone, particularly teenagers and members of groups that may be vulnerable,” a Meta spokesperson said.

If you need support or know someone who needs support please reach out to the following numbers

Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050; Sanjivini: 011-24311918; Maitreyi+91-413-339999