Ubaini E who is the director of ‘Rahel Makan Kora’ has resorted to the legal action against film reviewers and social media for tarnishing his movie deliberately. He claims that their motive is to blackmail and extort from him. This happened in Kochi city of Kerala and the FIR was registered under section 120 (0) and section 385 (extortion) of the Kerala Police Act.
The accused list also includes reviewers Aswanth Kok, Arun Tharanga, promotion firm Hains, Facebook account user anoopanu6165, souldmates55 and others. Even platforms like Facebook and YouTube were included in this list. Justice Devan Ramachandran heard the petition filed by Mubeen Rauf who made ‘Aromalinte Adyathe Pranayam’ as he exposed the impact of vloggers and their ‘foul play’ on the Kerala film industry.
The Kerala High Court is looking into these malicious reviews of films or ‘review bombings’ of movies. They ordered, “a close watch on online platforms shall be maintained to ensure that anonymous, mala fide content is not allowed to circulate and necessary action under provisions of the IT Act shall be taken and implemented scrupulously and without any delay.”
Since anonymous reviews can give people the opportunity to blackmail with unknown ID’s, Justice Ramachandran said, “The identity of the person has to be there. You have to say who you are, particularly when you are putting up a review. The anonymity of the platform is the biggest problem now.”
