K Suresh

Platforms promise community and creativity. What many of us now witness on Tamil TikTok is something darker. A space that should entertain and connect has become a theatre of humiliation, vigilantism, and performative cruelty. The evidence is not hearsay; it sits in the videos themselves.

Assaults, ambushes, and obscene provocations are broadcast live, then replayed to applause from audiences who have grown desensitised to harm. The question is not whether this is happening. The real question is why we have allowed it to become normal.

The Key Players and Their Tactics

Consider the characters who dominate these livestreams. I will use pseudonyms to keep the focus on behaviour rather than celebrity.

Rajan is a charismatic instigator who thrives on confrontation. He travels to scenes of conflict and stages public shaming, often with racially charged commentary that whips up a crowd.

Priya positions herself as a moral enforcer. Her content targets women and minorities with corrosive rhetoric and culminated in the assault of a disabled woman at a fast-food outlet. That incident was filmed live, with viewers piling into the comments as if watching a spectacle.

Arun presents as a community fixer. He is in fact a schoolteacher who has cultivated panchayat-style livestreams that indulge harassment and racial slurs. Meena is the architect of coordinated cyberbullying networks, encouraging sexualised harassment and attacks on minors through waves of anonymous accounts.

Kumar is a serving soldier whose daily broadcasts trivialise discipline and dignity, including the showing of private videos that have no place on a public platform.

Dev brands himself as a defender of the people, yet he and his spouse organise ambushes, storm social events, and bait officials for content under the guise of accountability.

Escalation and Real-World Harm

The common thread is escalation. Each of these figures converts grievance into theatre. They turn rumour into accusation, accusation into attack, and attack into endless content.

The line between online and offline has dissolved. Priya’s assault on an OKU woman is the most chilling illustration. That was not a private lapse in judgment; it was choreographed for an audience in real time. Rajan and Priya later celebrated their partnership in follow-up broadcasts, framing violence as community service.

Arun has threatened minorities and insulted faith traditions while encouraging a 14-year-old vulnerable teenager to enter the marketplace as an affiliate seller on TikTok, on his livestreams.

Kumar’s involvement in a slashing incident became a fundraising drive, complete with subsequent quarrels that spread to other networks.

Dev’s gambits include invading an elected representative’s event with cameras rolling. Every move is content. Every injury is a talking point. Every humiliation is a shareable clip.

The Role of Platforms

None of this happens without an enabling architecture. Livestreams offer instant validation. The comments encourage cruelty. Coins and gifts turn outrage into a revenue stream. Rivalries are monetised. Audiences are organised into mobs.

When an allegation is made on air, viewers expect instant justice delivered by the host and their followers. The performance then spills into the street where the same crowd gathers to heckle and harm. Tamil TikTok has become a stage for panchayat pageantry where the hosts are judge, jury, and ringmaster. It is spectacle masquerading as community leadership.

The Moral Hazard

There is a deeper moral hazard for institutions. A teacher cannot threaten violence, demean communities, or exploit a minor and still claim to uphold the values of education.

A soldier cannot hawk obscenities, broadcast private material, or participate in gang-style quarrels and still embody the discipline of service. An activist cannot ambush officials, stoke unrest, and trade in defamation while claiming to be a voice for the vulnerable.

The problem is not only what they say; it is the legitimacy their professional standing can confer on abusive conduct when presented as public service. The audience hears authority and sees entertainment. That combination is combustible.

The Audience and Its Complicity

The saddest element is the audience. Hundreds flock to watch a woman being assaulted in real time. Hundreds more flood a temple with phones raised for content. The act of filming becomes complicity.

Viewers do not stop the harm; they frame and amplify it. Lives are reduced to props. Children become content. The chase for virality rewards the most shameless behaviour. When the clip ends, the damage remains. Reputations are wrecked. Communities are divided. Trauma is inflicted. This is not a marketplace of ideas; it is a coliseum.

A Call for Accountability

Platforms carry responsibility that goes beyond slogans about safety. In these cases, the content was reported. No violation response arrived. That silence is not neutral; it tells bad actors that Tamil language spaces can be abused without consequence. It tells victims the platform cannot hear them. It tells audiences that cruelty is allowed if it draws engagement.

Moderation must be competent in every language, culturally literate, and swift. Where livestreams are concerned, safeguards need to act in minutes, not months. Repeat offenders should lose streaming privileges. Accounts that incite violence should be suspended. Content that exploits minors should be removed and referred to authorities.

None of those steps are radical; they are basic. Communities also have work to do. Stop attending ambushes. Stop sharing humiliations. Do not donate to chaos. Do not turn public institutions into stages for personal feuds.

If you see a video that documents harm, treat it as evidence and report it rather than entertainment to forward. Parents must speak to children about the danger of fame chasing in toxic spaces.

Teachers and religious leaders must reaffirm that dignity is not negotiable. Politicians and regulators must insist that safe design and real moderation are not optional extras. When we reward cruelty, we will get more cruelty. When we enforce standards, we will get better behaviour.

Conclusion

Tamil TikTok can be a place of art, humour, and everyday connection. Today it is too often a pipeline that carries anger to the public square. The hosts are not heroes. The mobs are not communities. The livestream is not justice.

It is time for platforms to moderate with competence and for audiences to choose decency. It should never again be acceptable for an assault to be broadcast live and celebrated as content. If we are serious about safety, we must be serious about standards. Only then can this space reclaim its promise.

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In memory of the late Esha whose death paved the way for meaningful laws against cyberbullying.