SML, the super cops of cyber space

Mumbai: This team of 26 personnel of Mumbai Police’s Social Media Lab (SML) patrol not the pavements but the vast cyberspace. They are largely away from the public glare and unlike their better-known khaki-clad colleagues, these law keepers don’t find expression in art, cinema or daily conversations.

However, in the last 11 months alone, the SML have taken down 15,500 provocative, hateful, sensitive, and objectionable posts that potentially could have disturbed the harmony of the city. Out of these, 15,000 were communal or defamatory comments and 500 related to terror activities.

Hunched over the monitors of their computers, the SML personnel go through gigabytes of data every day to find and flag content that could potentially lead to, or has already led to, law and order problems in the city.