Tag: cyber crime against women in India

Cyber crimes against women, Cyber Law

Creation of Porn content (including child porn): who holds the liability ? by Dr.Debarati Halder

In a recent incident, a minor girl discovered a mobile phone in a washroom in local restaurant in Diu, a popular tourist destination in western India. When she alerted her family members who were having a short halt there for refreshment, they found out that an employee of the restaurant installed the device for recording washroom activities of women and children. The man apparently opened the video setting while installing the device and hence his images were also captured: this helped the family to identify the perpetrator and immediately take action. The report suggests that the person was handed over to the police who charged him under S.77 of Bharatiya Nayay Sanhita which penalizes voyeurism and Ss.13, 14 and 15 of the Protection of children from sexual offences Act, 2012 which prescribes punishment for using children for pornographic purposes and for storage of porn contents involving children.

There are two aspects in this case that I would be discussing here:

  • The punishment and the purpose of the same,  and
  • The questions of legal liabilities in such cases

At the onset, let me share that Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was brought in to Indianise the criminal acts and the punishments for the same: the colonial concepts of criminal acts were changed to adjust the entire criminal justice system to contemporary Indian understanding.  While many research papers, articles and informative write-ups are created on pornography and its effect on society, surprisingly, the terminology of “pornography” is not properly defined in the laws in India. It is rather defined from the perspective of sexually explicit content, that we get to see in different laws including Information Technology Act, 2000 (amended in 2008). Largely, pornography is explained by private and government stakeholder as some visible representations that arouse and give sexual pleasure. Given this understanding, pornography can have two sides: legal pornography that are created only for medical purposes with contents, images or consensual human activities of adults like sexual acting /performing for sexual arousing of adults; and illegal pornography which is created by different methods including voyeurism, rape videos, using children and disabled people coercively etc. Many stakeholders have huge disagreements regarding legal nature of pornography. But unfortunately the reality needs to be accepted. Diving deep into legal philosophy, we may see that once we can differentiate legal and illegal pornography, the legal liabilities for illegal pornography may become more acceptable and prominent for prohibiting such illegal acts and designing thoughtful restorative justice oriented punishment for the same.  In the contemporary criminal justice system, voyeurism creation, production, circulation of illegal pornography and sexually explicit contents are seen as   bailable offence under Nyaya Sanhita for the first conviction as the maximum time for imprisonment has been set to three years. Protection of children from sexual offences Act however categorized such offences as non bailable in most cases. Indian courts have produced some landmark cases in this regard too. But unfortunately that did not deter   people like this restaurant employee to go ahead for installing device for recording washroom activities of women and children that can not only be viewed for personal sexual gratification, but also can be used for generating illegal profit by selling them in the porn market. Apparently the penal system may have failed to create deterrence feeling and awareness for illegalities for such activities. We however cannot blame the criminal justice system entirely. We need to see the digital technological advances too that provides anonymity and second life for anyone who may need to create multiple avatars to survive in the cyber space. 

Now, let us concentrate on the legal liabilities  of stakeholders for creating porn contents. In the Diu restaurant case, the perpetrator had apparently used device that was under his control and had installed it in the washroom of the restaurant where he was working. The legal liability may be divided for production of the content between the owner/chief operator of the premises, owner of the device and the person who is installing the device   if the owner/operator /chief manager of the premises knew beforehand about the purpose of the installation of the video capturing device in the washroom which may not be subject to surveillance in general times. The same understanding of liability will also be applicable for the owner of the device if the same was being handled by any other person for creation of the porn content. Given the understanding that device owner and the installer of the device in the washroom in this case  may be the same, we now have to turn our attention to the liability of the android service provider and the internet service provider (in case if the content was being live streamed). Apparently, the last two stakeholders may apply immunity veil through liability exemption clause as described under S.79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008). The provision reads as follows:

S.79(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force but subject to the provisions of sub-sections (2) and (3), an intermediary shall not be liable for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by him.

(2) The provisions of sub-section (1) shall apply if–

(a) the function of the intermediary is limited to providing access to a communication system over which information made available by third parties is transmitted or temporarily stored or hosted; or

(b) the intermediary does not–

(i) initiate the transmission,

(ii) select the receiver of the transmission, and

(iii) select or modify the information contained in the transmission;

(c) the intermediary observes due diligence while discharging his duties under this Act and also observes such other guidelines as the Central Government may prescribe in this behalf.

(3) The provisions of sub-section (1) shall not apply if–

(a) the intermediary has conspired or abetted or aided or induced, whether by threats or promise or otherwise in the commission of the unlawful act;

(b) upon receiving actual knowledge, or on being notified by the appropriate Government or its agency that any information, data or communication link residing in or connected to a computer resource controlled by the intermediary is being used to commit the unlawful act, the intermediary fails to expeditiously remove or disable access to that material on that resource without vitiating the evidence in any manner.

Explanation. — For the purposes of this section, the expression “third party information” means any information dealt with by an intermediary in his capacity as an intermediary

While the statute as shown above, saves the intermediary from being a stakeholder in cases of such as these, Clause (3) of S.79 highlights liabilities of the intermediary in case it knowingly took part in the action of production, creation, circulation of the content that falls in the category of illegal porn content and sexually explicit content, creation, production and circulation of which is criminalized.   

Now, let us see if the perpetrator can be charged and tried under S.15 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. This provision speaks about storing of child porn contents. S.15(1) f the POCSO Act prescribes punishment with a fine of Rs 5000/- in the fist conviction and Rs.10,000/- in the second conviction for a  “ person, who stores or possesses pornographic material in any form involving a child, but fails to delete or destroy or report the same to the designated authority, as may be prescribed, with an intention to share or transmit child pornography”.  This sub clause therefore penalizes storing of child porn content with an intention to share and transmit it and does not report the matter to the designated authority. Clause (2) of S.15 goes ahead further for prescribing punishment of jail term for  a maximum period of 3 years for storing or possessing  “…….pornographic material in any form involving a child for transmitting or propagating or displaying or distributing in any manner at any time except for the purpose of reporting, as may be prescribed, or for use as evidence in court.”

Clause (3) further prescribes punishment stores or possesses pornographic material in any form involving a child for commercial purposes. The maximum punishment is for five years jail term with the minimum time period for the jail term is three years. It may become bailable offence if this very provision is applied for the perpetrators.

Interestingly, in the recent case of JUST RIGHTS FOR CHILDREN ALLIANCE Vs. S. HARISH Diary No.- 8562 – 2024, the Supreme Court has held that mere watching of child pornography is also considered as offence  as this may be considered as inclusive of a chain of behavior like opening the link containing porn content, storing the same with possible control over the possession , reporting of the content and deleting the content without opening the content.

Above discussion may now lead us to understand the followings about legal responsibilities of stakeholders who may be involved for producing, creating and circulating porn contents including child pornography contents:

  1. Production of porn contents may not only mean financially facilitating the creator of the porn content, but also may mean any one who may provide facilities like permitting to use premises under his/her own possession for creation of porn contents mainly with purpose of gaining /sharing illegal profit from illegal distribution of such contents.
  2. Installation of camera devices secretly in washrooms, rest rooms, bed rooms etc, may be considered as an act for the purpose of recording, creating and disseminating voyeur images, child porn and nonconsensual adult porn images.
  3. The mobile phone company, software company that may facilitate operation in the mobile phone or electronic devices and the service provider that may be used to record, store, disseminate the illegal images, may not be held liable for aiding the actual perpetrator unless they are knowingly aiding in such work.
  4. Storing of such images (including illegally captured images of sexual organs of adults and children, people engaged in sexual acts etc, is considered as an offence under POCSO Act as well as under Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008).
  5. Non-reporting of receiving /knowledge of such illegal porn contents can also be considered as an offence especially under POCSO Act.

May every child be safe . May every adult be safe.

Please don’t violate the copyright of this writeup. Please cite as Halder Debarati (2024).. Published in https://internetlegalstudies.com/2024/11/14/Creation of Porn content (including child porn): who holds the liability ?by-dr-debarati-halder/ on 14/11/2024

Cyber crimes against women, Cyber Law

Duping women in the name of matured friendship: The Pollachi sextortion case

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Couple of days back I received a friends request on FaceBook from a male profile whom I do not know either personally or through any of my networks. But the profile was apparently very impressing : the man was an alumni of Oxford University , works in Mercedes Benz company and he is better looking than the average. From  my experience as a cybercrime victim counsellor , lawyer and a cyber right activist for more than a decade now  I could understand that this may be one of many fake profiles that are created to allure women (and not necessarily  young girls) to trap them and victimize them through online and offline crimes including sexual crimes. It is an obvious phenomena now that women, especially educated women are using social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc for expanding their network  for various purposes including Job searching, getting connected with like-minded people, expanding their research network , volunteering for social causes etc.  
In the recently held #Webwonderwomen award ceremony in Delhi, the Ministry of Women and Child affairs awarded 30 women including myself the #Webwonderwomen award for positively using social media (especially Twitter), spreading awareness about the social causes they are working on and their real life support for women empowerment all across India. It was a joint initiative of Ministry of Women and Child affairs, Twitter and Breakthrough India. My fellow awardees work in different fields of public health, women’s health, right to breast feeding, women empowerment, journalism especially for the causes of women, proper nutrition for women, education for women and girls especially in socio-economically backward sectors of the society, empowering women of all age group from socio-economically backward sectors  about their rights against domestic violence, sexual reproduction rights etc.  All of them could actually make their journey stronger because of positive use of social media. I too have been using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc  to get connected with  people who have become my knowledge partners, mentors and friends in the field of law and policy especially for Cyber Victimology, Cyber law for women, Cyber Criminology, Revenge Porn, Non consensual porn,  Women’s Rights, Child Rights, Criminal law, Penology, Therapeutic Jurisprudence  etc.  It would not have been possible for me reach to the world about my work including my pro bono work without social media and the friends that I have made. I consider myself privileged to have 24 hours  access to internet  and a platform where I can share my opinion bravely, gather information without any fear and build a reputation.  Some of my fellow awardees  could win this award staying in remote places because they are well connected with the world through internet and social media.  Internet as such has given a platform to earn money in a positive way too. Consider thousands of women who make daily/weekly/monthly  Vlogs and upload it on Youtube . They have their recognition as “Youtuber” and YouTube duly recognizes their “popularity” (marketability) by awarding and rewarding them.
But still then, internet is not safe for women.  The Pollachi case proved it again.  Pollachi is the second largest town in Coimbatore district in Tamil Nadu.  This place is famous for its world famous jaggery  market and beautiful lush green agricultural fields. One would actually not imagine that this can be a center for news on cyber crimes against women, but it has now surfaced because of a brave young woman who had lodged a complaint against  the  smart gang of men who had been “enjoying” sex by way of connecting with women through fake profiles (mostly of women), grooming them to enter into chats and sharing more details, turning the chats into typical sex chats and then alluring them to come and meet in person. In my book Cyber crimes against women in India (coauthored with  prof(Dr) Jaishankar, Halder D., & Jaishankar K. (November 2016). Cyber Crime against Women in India. New Delhi: SAGE. ISBN: 978-93-859857-7-5.) I had discussed about such kinds of grooming and consequent victimization of women and this can be shown through the flow chart as below:
Image created by Dr.Debarati Halder 
 This brave woman was sexually harassed , molested and assaulted when she went to meet the so called ‘friends’, who had been doing this to many women, recording their sexual assault in their phones and threatening them to leak the clippings if they dare to refuse their demands or to go to the police. The police has now arrested all the four members of the gang applying provisions including Ss. 354A, B of the Indian Penal Code , S.66E of the Information technology Act and S.4 of the  Tamil Nadu Prohibition of harassment of women’s Act. [1]. Let us see what do these provisions say and whether  these Sections may play a pivotal role in delivering justice to women victims such as this brave heart:
S. 354A of the IPC says
(1) “A man committing any of the following acts—
(i)  physical contact and advances involving unwelcome and explicit sexual overtures;
(ii) or a demand or request for sexual favours;
(iii)or showing pornography against the will of a woman;
(iv) or making sexually coloured remarks, shall be guilty of the offence of sexual harassment.
(2) Any man who commits the offence specified in clause (i) or clause (ii) or clause (iii) of sub-section (1) shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
Any man who commits the offence specified in clause (iv) of sub-section (1) shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.
S.354 B of the Indian Penal Code states that
“Any man who assaults or uses criminal force to any woman or abets such act with the intention of disrobing or compelling her to be naked, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than three years but which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.”.
S.66E of the Information technology Act 2000 (amended in 2008) states as follows:
 Punishment for violation of privacy. -Whoever, intentionally or knowingly captures, publishes or transmits the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent, under circumstances violating the privacy of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years or with fine not exceeding two lakh rupees, or with both. Explanation. -For the purposes of this section-
(a) “transmit” means to electronically send a visual image with the intent that it be viewed by a person or persons;
(b) “capture”, with respect to an image, means to videotape, photograph, film or record by any means;
(c) “private area” means the naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks or female breast;
(d) “publishes” means reproduction in the printed or electronic form and making it available for public; e) “under circumstances violating privacy” means circumstances in which a person can have a reasonable expectation that;-
(i) he or she could disrobe in privacy, without being concerned that an image of his private area was being captured; or
(ii) any part of his or her private area would not be visible to the public, regardless of whether that person is in a public or private place.
Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment Act states as follows:
Penalty for harassment of woman: Whoever commits or participates in or abets harassment of woman in or within the precincts of any educational institution, temple or other place of worship, bus stop, road, railway station, cinema theatre, park, beach, place of festival, public service vehicle or vessel or any other place shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine which shall not be less than ten thousand rupees.”
Noticeably, this provision may have been used for punishing the accused for committing the crime in the “specific place”; for secluding the victim from her  ‘comfort zone’ where she could have raised an alarm for help and committing the crime in a place which may be a public place or a moving vehicle from where the victim may not escape easily. 
The other news report suggested that the District Collector had ordered for detention of the accused under Goondas Act (officially known as Tamil Nadu Prevention of  Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug offenders, Goondas, Immoral traffic offenders, Sand offenders, Slum grabbers, and Video pirates Act, 1985) .[2]In my earlier blog I had explained how Goondas Act can be relevant in cyber offences by stating that this law can be very relevant especially where crimes including committing or attempting to commit extortion of money , threatening for the same, cheating, etc are involved.[3]
However, I have not seen any news report indicating that S.67A of the Information Technology Act (amended in 2008) was used for booking of the offences or not. This Section speaks about   Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form and says “Whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published or transmitted in the electronic form any material which contains sexually explicit act or conduct shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and with fine which may extend to ten lakh rupees and in the event of second or subsequent conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years and also with fine which may extend to ten lakh rupees”. It does not necessarily speak about creating such content by clicking the images and this has to be inferred from the provision itself. However, this lacuna has been partly covered by S.66E of the Information technology Act which speaks about violating the privacy of any individual.

Clearly, this is not a case of revenge porn, but a case of non consensual porn especially when the accused persons would have stored the clipping of sexual assault of the woman concerned with an intention of visual sexual gratification through the clipping/s and also to use it for future threatening or creating/producing sexually explicit contents on internet . But unfortunately the laws are still handicapped in this regard when it comes to grooming and sextortion. There is no law which may holistically cover the whole issue of grooming women for sexual gratification , which is narrowly addressed in the POCSO Act. Here lies the major lacuna which may have motivated many for victim blaming. 
Women like Pollachi brave heart would not have created “virtual friendship” with another unknown man or woman unless the perpetrator would have customized the fake profile to gain trust. This could have been done by thorough data mining about the victim/s.  apparently the victims of this gang were adult women including doctors, teachers etc. Such perpetrators look for their prey from social media profiles who may have not taken full precautions to protect their albums, posts, friend lists and above all the email ids and/or the  phone numbers  which  are used for accessing social media through phones. This ignorance may invite major risks as this particular case. However, social media site is also to be blamed for not monitoring the creation of fake profiles which they would not necessarily scan unless someone reports the profile as fake.
This case should have a happy ending and this can be possible only when this particular  victim and other victims of this gang cooperate with the prosecution till the end and the police uses its legal power to extract all evidences from the social media website. We as civil society members are also responsible to make a happy ending of this case : please do not circulate the images of the victim/s if in case you are conveyed the images from any number, profile etc. Such circulation would also attract penal provisions against the person who may not be directly involved in the case, but may circulate it thinking that it is “fun” to circulate such images, or he/she is doing the same to make the society aware that such crimes have happened. We all should respect the privacy of the victims and at the same time praise the victims for breaking social taboo  and reporting the matter to the police.
Stop cybercrimes against women. Start positive usage of social media .
Please note : Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use information provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2019),Duping women in the name of matured friendship: The Pollachi sextortion case  ” 12th March, 2019 , published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA
Uncategorized

Right to Love on social media on Valentine’s Day

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Image curtsy: Google
Come Valentine’s Day and social media and digital messaging services like WhasApp or Snapchat are flooded by beautiful heartwarming messages, pictures and emogies. Nonetheless, Facebook, Instagram , Whatsapp YouTube and also some adult networking sites may see more contributions of nude videos, revenge porn, fake avatarsas well by jilted lovers. The other type of messages that one may get to see in these platforms are those from moral policing groups asking people to refrain from ‘celebrating Valentine’s day’ in Facebook, Twitter  and other social media . Such message can be ‘shared messages’, can be opinions or even can be clear  threats to ‘whoever’ ‘celebrates  ‘Valentine’s day’.
The question is, do we have something called Right to love? Can this right be considered to  be violated if someone posts messages against celebration of Valentine’s day ?  Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) does not specifically speak about right to love, but it flows from Article 16 (Right to marriage and family) and Article 19 (freedom of opinion and expression).  All most all countries with modern constitution including India, UK, Singapore, US, Canada, Australia, countries from European union including Germany, France, Spain  etc  do recognize the right to choose and communicate with   dating partner, live-in partner , same sex partners and heterosexual partners for emotional bondage including marriage  because these countries  recognize right to express opinion, freedom of speech and expression and also right to marriage and family. While right to form family by way of live-in relationships or  homosexual partnerships  have been recognized by  several countries by way of legitimizing  the rights of children born out of such union or  adopted in such marriages, some countries may  not recognize Live-in relationships or same sex marriages in real life . 
But right to chose emotional partners and right to communicateto the same on cyber space are not barred by any law. For example, even when Indian Supreme court did not apply doctrine of severability to S.377 todecriminalize same sex union and consider the rights of transgender people to be recognized as 3rd gender people, or even when the US did not legalize gay marriages,  Facebook had pages and groups meant for socializing and creation of emotional bonding between  LGBTQ people.  Right to love is rather an abstract idea which may be expressed when a person starts expressing the love to his/her chosen person on a specific platform. Seen from this aspect, right to love on cyber space may be barred only  under specific circumstances, i.e., when the same expression offends the ‘target’ person because he/she may not like to develop any emotional relationship with the person expressing  the feelings either because the relationship falls under the concept of stalker and victim, ex lover or spouse where the victim ex does not want to be connected with the other person anymore, or  a real life acquaintance including workplace acquaintance who had accepted to be friends with the other person  expecting reasonable distance and privacy , or a stranger  who may not like to be approached by way of expressing  eros.  Similarly, positive reciprocation of love on cyber space may not be offensive unless the receiver/reciprocator is knowingly committing any mistake like that of  breaking  trust  of a married partner.
A person may however be deterred from exercising his/her right to love an acclaimed criminal only when such relationship may prove to be hazardous for the security of the nation or for the society at large.  But he/she may not be held guilty for such love affair on cyber space when he /she can prove his/her innocence in knowledge about the particular acclaimed criminal. He/she may even claim compensation under certain circumstances when such fraudulent relationship causes damage to him/her as well. But note that I am speaking about being offended from the perspective of the receiver of the message carrying an expression of love and not the bystanders in case such message are posted on some one’s timelines or in a common group or in a page and it is publicly visible. Moral policing groups against celebration of Valentine’s day may go ahead with their propaganda of   threats of ‘devastating results’ on the understanding that whoever  exercises right to love either by way of expressing love for some one, or by  showing a status ‘in love with X’ or by even reciprocating to such message by  words or emogies or even by thumbs up  should be considered as ‘dangerous’ for the society as a whole.  Some radical groups have even come up with warning that people exercising their’ right to love’ will be straightaway married  off  or they will be warned to stop displaying (exercising their right  to) love. Understandably  such sorts of warning messages may have been made to create fear in the minds of  individuals who may belong to orthodox patriarchal families where love marriages are not allowed  or where threats of honor killings exists . Such radical groups  are targeting those individuals who may be new generation social media users and whose families including parents may not know their digital whereabouts.  
The question is, would such announcements by such radical groups be considered as hate speechor threat speech? There may be varied opinions for this.  If the statement/s show that the commentator/s  may track the whereabouts of the persons  who are expressing their love on Facebook or any other social media  on valentine’s day to commit some harm, the speech may be considered as threat speech especially because they may indicate violation of privacy and also intention to commit harm (even if it is arranging marriage, which may be the ultimate the aim of the love birds). Women especially may feel threatened because this may result in offline and online reputation damage, rape threats (especially if it is an inter religious affair) or even   grave threats to their lives.  Some , including the   social media website may consider  such speech as absolutely normal because such speech may seem to be very broad  to be fitted within  the meaning of hate speech or threat speech because such speeches may be ‘general’  and may not target any specific individual, class or community of people.  But we must not forget  that online mob violence may become extremely dangerous especially when such instigating comments or posts are made. Concerned authorities therefore must not ignore such ‘warnings’.
But I would have been happiest would the moral policing groups turn their attention to evils done on cyber space and send messages to the world including possible perpetrators to refrain from creating revenge porn on the Valentine ’s Day. In my observation I have seen that on such days several jilted lovers, revengeful persons and stalkers may create revenge porn stuff to grossly violate women’s reputation including rightsto privacy.
Let us join hands to prevent spreading of hate and threats through social media. Let us grow love and not hate.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2018), “Right to love on social media  on Valentine’s Day ” 10th February, 2018, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA
Uncategorized

#MeToo : Tales of victimisation in real life as well as on internet

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Way back in 2012 my sister gave me some Hollywood magazines which she was reading in her long flight to India. These are the tit-bits for any reader who would like to know what is happening with the lives of film stars and celebrities who mesmerise us on screen. I got to see how several film stars of West including Hollywood were affected by voyeurism by enthusiastic fans and profit making photographers. Indeed these fans and photographers may make huge money because of a huge group of consumers: the common cine lovers. Soon there was more news about celebrity hacks; their gym photos, private holiday photos, private moment photos, private bathing photos were leaked online and by the time one or two victims could get back to the police; the world knew about their private lives. The positive point to think over this issue is, several women film actors had taken such online privacy infringement seriously and either took the matter to the police or had filed law suits against gossip magazines or channels who unethically published their private photos or videos. I call this “positive” because these women had defied the common understanding that approaching the police or the courts for online harassment including sexual harassment like leaking of private photos or videos is nothing but publicity stunt. Unfortunately in India several female film stars including upcoming film stars or serial actors also fall prey to the same sort of victimisation and when they turn towards the police or the courts, many a times, it is seen as publicity stunt: not to forget, their Western counter parts also do go through the same. But at the same time, I have not found many Indian women film stars and serial actors who took the matters of online sexual victimisation as seriously as their Western counter parts ( I addressed this issue in my article “Celebrities and cyber crimes: An analysis of the victimisation of female film stars on the internet” http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/1450-6637/2016/1450-66371604355H.pdf).
But women actors may be the most ‘exploited’ species among working women: consider the blunt, straight forward speech of Madona during Woman of the year award in 2016. Social media channels were flooded with comments, emogies and thumbs ups praising her for boldly expressing how she had been sexually violated in real life and how she continues to be violated online at present. Why she had to be the victim of sexual violation? Apparently it is because of the presence of ‘God fathers’ in the workplace who may coerce the women to enter into a non-consensual sexual relationship which would ensure continuous job protection. For the last couple of days, several female actors from Hollywood have started protesting against such sexual exploitation with #metoo . The campaign had been so strong and viral that it has touched almost all continents and millions of women who may have been sexually victimised or violated either by way of penetrative sexual assault or by non-penetrative sexual assault or by sexual harassment in workplaces, public places as well as in their homes, have opened up about their victimisation.
India has also been touched by #MeToo campaign. Several women have expressed their solidarity by pasting on their time line the following lines:“Me too… If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me Too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem. Please copy/paste.”. This was originally shared by actress Alyssa Milano and others as a protest against sexual victimisation by Harvey Weinstein, a noted  producer-distributor who had been ousted from Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on 15th October, 2017.
Most of my 900 friends on Facebook who had been sporting #MeToo in their profile time lines for past 72 hours had been sharing several forms of victimisation; most common is definitely sexual gazing at public places and work places. I had posted in my time line about online sexist comments and pornographic  stuff including misogynist posts which I often get to see in my message box (thanks to continuous privacy ‘tactics’ that I practice for  my Twitter and Facebook timelines, I do not get to see such violating and victimising stuff in my time-line except on rare occasions). Several of my friends and acquaintances have simply shared the  “metoo” message  to show their solidarity with the cause, which I am sure, has definitely affected them, but they may not be feeling comfortable to openly express the same. Two posts however have actually attracted my attention even though they do not speak about cyber sexual victimisation or workplace victimisation : one by Sauranshu Sinha from Delhi and the other by Dr. Kalki Subramaniam from Pondicherry. The latter, a transgender activist and a trans-woman herself wrote a poignant note using #metoo. A part of her message (which is open for public) reads as follows “…………………………………..Around the world, every transgender woman, and in India almost every cis/transwoman goes through this brutal, uncouth, insensible torture. No more can they do it to me today. I stand tall and strong. Yet, i must say I was a victim too.”
Sinha is the first man I noticed who wrote about his experience of being sexually violated when he was a 6th standard student. A part of his message (which is open for public viewing) using #metoo stated that while he was travelling in a bus, a man touched him inappropriately and opened his zip to show Sinha his private parts (translated from Bengali). Sinha was a victim of sexual exploitation as a young boy who shared his solidarity with #metoo.
I know several of my friends, women and men who did not share their own experiences or neither shared #metoo, would have been victims themselves at one or other point of time. There are several individuals who may probably never understand that even comments like “hi sexy” or “wanna talk, reply back” may also be victimising especially when the receiver feels insulted, hurt, alarmed or feels his/her modesty has been harmed. There are several victims of online sexual harassment who may never speak up about their bitter experiences due to fear of more exposure. Thousands of women may remain silent even when their friends are marching along with #metoo to expose the sorts of victimisation they had gone through and alert the society.  Yet, I welcome #metoo campaigners. When people dare to share, there remain positive chances for the policy makers and law-makers to executors to note the pain. Let us hope that #metoo brings a change not only in the mindsets of people, but also in the process of implementation of laws. We need to understand that women who had been victimised and turned up to share their experiences, should get due protection and respect from all of us. Let us unite to defy sexist misogynist trolls from making #metoo and all of us victims again.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2017), “#MeToo : Tales of victimisation in real life as well as on internet, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA
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The Facebook way of saving “face” : The profile picture guard by Facebook

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Long back in 2005 when I was newly introduced to a very popular social media “orkut”, I proudly showed off my profile with my own picture  which was clicked during a family wedding. Internet communication technology was new to India and we women were regularly being targeted because of the easy availability of our presence. This was largely due to lack of security in the social media as well as internet. We did not have two step verification for Gmail; Yahoo chat messenger, which was extremely popular during those days, almost made everyone’s personal information that were uploaded for the website, available to anyone who wanted access the user. It was during that period that I learnt about cloning of profiles which were made to harass individuals, especially women. The profiles may not be hacked, may neither be directly accessed by way of sending friends’ request; but the profile pictures may be downloaded and a new profile may be created with the available profile picture and profile information. Way back in 2006-7 I already had several women victims who contacted me for help and guidance. Almost all of them had common problem : harassment by way of creation of fake avatars. I have been part of the feminist movement which vehemently protested making women as ‘sex object’ on internet. Indeed women are made as ‘sex objects’ and they are regularly targeted by  misogynists, perverts and online traffickers who may selectively pick up women and girls by seeing their profiles, profile pictures and shadowing their online activities.
Let me go back to my own experiences where I received the first harassing comment (which was not stalking, neither resulted due to hacking) which was plainly nothing but ‘bullying’. My first profile picture in Orkut received a remark which mocked at my supposedly ‘over made-up   face’ and ‘blood red lipstick’. I knew this was just the beginning and if reciprocated, the bully may be extremely provoked to reply back. But this was not the first and last incident. I have received various negative comments, I have had my own period of being victim of a female stalker who monitored me and did send defamatory mails about me to my husband and again I had noticed several attempts to open Facebook accounts with my name and email ids. The later was detected and prevented by me because I never neglect the security messages sent by websites in my mails.
In my research I have seen that often the police and lawyers refuse to help the women victims and start the blame game. This is because they may not be aware of the mechanism to help and counsel the victims. In my opinion, websites must also be made responsible for third party victimization of women especially when the genuine reports of violation fail to move the websites.   However, the websites concerned, may constantly develop safety policy guidelines for users to make the users take self prevention mechanisms. I have been part of Facebook women safety program for quite some times now.  I continue to demand for more liability on the part of the websites especially for women and this time my concern was safety of profile pictures of women.  I was extremely happy to see the developments in the security and policies of Facebook which was introduced in India on 22ndJune, 2017: ‘The profile picture guard’. Every woman must avail this opportunity to safeguard their profile picture since this is the most chosen target of all the images that may be uploaded by a user. The step by step guide to how to use this ‘guard’ is explained by Facebook team @ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/06/giving-people-more-control-over-their-facebook-profile-picture/
However, I understand that it is not the women only, but children are also extremely vulnerable targets of sexual predators. Men are neither excluded. All users must use this facility and it may definitely help to reduce ‘image stealing’ for various malicious purposes including morphing, hacking and creation of fake avatars. But we need to understand that is not the ultimate answer to prevent revenge porn cases. While image of an individual may be saved because Facebook may detect the particular stolen image easily after receiving the report, there is a still remains a lacuna for other photographs which are in the personal albums. We must also note that the website will not suomotu take action for the cloned or stolen images. The victim must report the profile and the concerned profile picture along with the “shielded picture” as evidence.

Its nonetheless a big step in the history of cyber security for women and I congratulate Facebook for taking this initiative. But again, ……… accidents do happen and we need to be stronger to recover.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2017), “The Facebook way of saving “face” : The profile picture guard by Facebook”  23rd June, 2017, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA
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Smart cities may not always be Safe cities: Recalling Bangalore incidence

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

On December 20, 2016 I was attending a round table conference  on Smart City, Safe City in Delhi. After the Delhi gang rape case in 2012, every one addressed Delhi as an unsafe city. New apps emerged which would help women in distress to send SOS to their relatives and friends and alert the police. The police force of all metro cities also vowed to ensure safety for women in public places. Not much success though! There were several incidences of rape including gang rape which again and again made us realised that there is a difference between promising and doing. What disturbed me more was sudden increase of rape videos on internet. Rapists and their aides physically violate women and capture the moments to enjoy it later! Or should I say to earn unethical profits out of this? Yes! They earn a good fortune by distributing such videos to various ‘ports’ from where such videos float to many other ports, devices and jurisdictions. I would not have believed that local petty shops earn revenue by selling such videos to young adults and matured teens until one day I came across a news report on this. Presently it is not only the violent rape videos or voyeur honeymoon videos alone which is being consumed by porn addicts; the list has included videos on public place molestation and  kissing and fondling of young lovers at dark places. The Bangalore molestation incident on the 31st December 2016 night  is also floating in the internet now. Indeed, it has been seen not only by those who wanted to know the reality, but also by porn addicts because this is nothing but a ‘sex video’ or ‘sex clip’ for many. The images show forcefully touching, fondling and trying to kiss women.
Question is who clicks these? Who disseminates these? While I do not deny that many people in the crowd who would have noticed these incidences may have taken pictures of such molestation because we severely lack a proper public place photographing law; I must say these molestation videos have become viral because of the poor surveillance on the work of the surveillance camera as well. On the one hand we thank the media to bring this news in the forefront. But on the other hand, I can’t stop thinking about extreme violation of privacy. What for the surveillance cameras are installed in public places? It is because the police (the so-called 24 hour help lines) could be made aware then and there of what is happening and how it is happening in the public places. Shockingly enough the police took charge after the media highlighted the issue. What more can be gathered from this is, the person who may be monitoring the images captured by the surveillance cameras may wanted to alert the media first and not the police. May be the person in charge would have alerted both the stakeholders, but the failure of the police to take charge of the issue first has not only  violated the right of the victims to speedy justice, but has also revealed a crude joke: privacy of the  sexual assault victims can neither be guaranteed.
          28thJanuary is celebrated as Data Protection day in many countries including India. On this day 27 years ago Council of Europe opened the Convention for the protection of individuals with regard to automatic processing of personal data for signature by the State parties. India is yet to adopt this convention. India neither has any focused Privacy protection law, even though the provisions relating to protection of privacy are scattered in different legislation.  Ironically the concept of smart city has motivated the creation if several apps and digital policing. But the Bangalore incident again proved that nothing really works ‘smartly’ until stricter implementations of the traditional laws are made.
Stay safe, act safe.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2017), “ Smart cities may not always be Safe cities: Recalling Bangalore incidence”  29thjanuary, 2017, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.in/
CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA
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Puberty photography: Are we sexualising our young girls?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Menstruation is a phase that every woman has to undergo no matter whether it gives her pleasant or unpleasant experiences.  For most Indian girls who are in periods, the experience may not be pleasant one. Even though it is actually a biological purification of reproduction system, socially the girl in puberty may be considered as un-pure.  She may be treated like a secluded dirty living creature. I would not have believed this until the day I saw a woman in her 30’s standing in her own portico in a hot summer afternoon. When asked as why she was standing in the hot sun, her answer was, ‘I have my periods’.  Against such social taboos, several activists have taken out vigorous campaigns, amongst which #HappyToBleed is foremost which was created to spread awareness about menstrual hygiene and also a protest against  restrictions on menstruating women to enter specific  temples . While I support such move towards creation of awareness regarding menstruation, my concern lies with a separate issue. Some societies in India celebrate the puberty of girls in special ways. Most mentionable of this is the south Indian culture of celebrating puberty. Several sociologists may provide explanations as why this particular occasion is celebrated with such pomp and gaiety.  The common ritual that is followed throughout the day ( a specific day is fixed after the girl ends her very first 4 days of menstruation), involves special pujas and  showering the girl with gifts , bathing of the girl with water mixed with herbs, feeding the girl with nutritious meals including fresh vegetables and fruits, adorning her with new clothes and ornaments which may symbolise that she is no more a little girl, but has “attended age” for reproduction, followed by a feast for relatives and friends. When I was invited for a puberty function for the first time, I was confused as what to gift; I carefully chose a Whisper packet and wrapped it in a gift pack, thinking this would be an ideal gift for the girl who has started her menstrual cycle for the very first time. But later, I was told that the right gift would be a  simple flower “gajra” for decorating her hair and a box of sweets. Stuffs like a pack of sanitary napkins or awareness materials including books or CDs on menstrual hygiene are not included as parts of gifts from women invitees except when the woman concerned is the girl’s mother or own aunt (but this may be a rare occasion).   Strangely enough, many families pay very less attention to make the girl as well as other female children aware of menstrual hygiene, even though this occasion could very well be used for this.  Some even call this as “pre-wedding ceremony” since in earlier times such ceremony would involve an implied announcement that the girl is ready for marriage. Some families lavishly spend for these ceremonies. However, notably, while this is a common cultural practice in south India, celebrating puberty in such a fashion would not be seen in some other parts of India including eastern India or northern India.  This puberty function is necessarily accompanied with something called “puberty function photography”. Some families, who can afford to hire professional photographers, document the whole ceremony. Several families have also created YouTube videos of these ceremonies.
While this is a completely  family affair and may be this could be taken as a positive note against menstruation taboo, one must also consider the other side of the coin. Many girls may not like the whole ceremony of publicising their biological developments. Some may not even like to be photographed as the “puberty girl”.  Some of the girls with whom I had interacted on this issue, told me that they felt extremely awkward because they felt that they were being sexually objectified. That is because the occasion is not a birthday or a wedding reception, but something which is “privately hers”.  What is most embarrassing for most of these girls is being photographed as a “puberty girl” by young boys who may be brothers or brother’s friends. These boys who may be in their pre adolescent age or in adolescence, may not have awareness about puberty. But the ceremony may only make them understand that the girl is ‘sexually ready’. I felt really sad when I saw a young girl in the midst of her puberty ceremony pleading with her brother and cousins to stop objectifying her and   shut the camera off. It was clear: may be the boys were clicking her to make their own albums of “puberty girl” to be shared later with family and friends, the girl could definitely understand that  she was being marked for her biological, rather sexual changes and she did not wish to be photographed for that particular occasion.
Does such photography have really anything to do with sexually objectifying a young girl? I have two contradictory opinions: if awareness campaigns like the #HappyToBleed campaign can create positive awareness about menstruation and can get good response from men, then why not publicise puberty photography? This can be used to spread awareness about puberty and reproduction among children in a very child-friendly way. But at the same time, I must say, our society is still not ready to handle progressive thoughts about menstruation of women and girls. There are umpteen examples of online harassment of women and girls by misusing their photographs. Amateur puberty photography of young girls (especially on occasions of ceremonial bath in their wet clothes) may attract unwanted attention from harassers who may make unethical use of such images.  The photographs or video clippings may also attract sexist comments from strangers if the said photographs or videos are made open for public viewing.  In such situations, instead of happy memories for a special occasion, the images may bring  huge trauma to the girl in question. Added with it, if the parents and family members of the victim are not aware of cyber ethics, the girl may face great hardships even for socialising with her friends through digital communication mediums or even for continuing her studies because no one would like to lodge a police complaint on these images . Even if some one does, he/she may have to face upheal task to make the concerned  police officer (in case he/she is unaware of the nuances of online victimisation, sexually objectifying remarks and laws regarding this) understand  what makes the offence and why.
I feel instead of encouraging the children to have a hand on amateur photography during the puberty ceremony, the families should consider teaching the children about menstrual hygiene and  role of puberty in every one’s life. Then comes the issue of teaching cyber etiquettes as what should be photographed, how the girl should be photographed and why it is necessary to take her consent before clicking her and also before uploading her images as “puberty girl”.  If the puberty function is arranged in this manner, I am sure, children may not only be made aware of reproduction, menstrual hygiene and sexuality through the unique learning method, they may also become crusaders against online victimisation of women and girls.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2016), “Puberty photography: are we sexualising our girls?” 6th June, 2016, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA
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WhatsApp encryptions: Does it really protect women and children from cyber crimes ?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Couple of days ago hundreds of WhatsApp user may have come across a small message with each of the messages that they may have received from their Whatsapp friends : the message indicated that from now onwards except the sender and the receiver, no one (not even WhatsApp) would be able to decrypt any message that is encrypted from end to end. A simple meaning of this is, when I send a message to one of my friends in WhatsApp, the algorithm key that I am using to encrypt my message can not be ‘opened’/translated/seen/understood /accessed by anyone other than that particular friend to whom the message is intended for and sent to. The sender may understand whether her message has been delivered to the intended recipient by seeing the double ‘tick’ sign and once they are blue in colour, the sender may assume that the message has been actually seen and read by the recipient. WhatsApp in its own version says “WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption is available when you and the people you message use the latest versions of our app. Many messaging apps only encrypt messages between you and them, but WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you’re communicating with can read what is sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp. This is because your messages are secured with a lock, and only the recipient and you have the special key needed to unlock and read them. For added protection, every message you send has its own unique lock and key. All of this happens automatically: no need to turn on settings or set up special secret chats to secure your messages.” (https://www.whatsapp.com/security/). And how would we know whether the message is encrypted or not? Whatsapp says :
“To verify that a chat is end-to-end encrypted
Open the chat.
Tap on the name of the contact or group to open the contact info/group info screen.
Tap Encryption to view the QR code and 60-digit number.
If you and your contact are physically next to each other, one of you can scan the other’s QR code or visually compare the 60-digit number. If you scan the QR code, and the code is indeed the same, a green checkmark will appear. Since they match, you can be sure no one is intercepting your messages or calls.If the codes do not match, it’s likely you’re scanning the code of a different contact, or a different phone number. If your contact has recently reinstalled WhatsApp, or switched devices, we recommend you refresh the code by sending them a new message and then scanning the code.” (https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/28030015)
So what does it mean? A secured conversation? Respite from hackers? No disturbance from unknown persons? By now, internet has been flooded with write-ups, analysis and discussions on whether the encryption policy of WhatsApp is good or bad for its subscribers. Some says it was indeed needed because it would save subscribers from unwanted government surveillances, hackers and unethical profit makers who see internet as a place for easily available images which may be ‘sold’ to the porn market. Some opine that this encryption policy would make it impossible for the police to help the victims of cyber crimes including women and children.  Before beginning any discussion on this, we must understand about encryption and decryption policies that is the centre of issues here. Encryption ( which means converting a data into codes which can not be simply intercepted ) is a necessary part of every internet/digital communication system  and  encryption policies may be framed based on the laws of the hosting nation (of the web company) and  the company policies which is enabling such services. India does not have any specific Rules regarding encryption policies under the Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008), even though S.84A of the Act authorises the government to implement Rules regarding this. Encryption is not complete without decryption which is a process of opening such encrypted data. Every data which is encrypted, must necessarily have the right ‘keys’ to be decrypted, otherwise the intention behind encrypting a data would have no meaning. Decryption however is defined by Information Technology (Procedure and safeguards for interception, monitoring and decryption of information) Rules, 2009  created under S.69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008). It needs to be noted that decryption policies are also generally guided by the laws of the hosting country. But at the same time, each web company must necessarily abide by the laws of the place of ‘business’ as well. This means that even if a web company has its own policies regarding encryption to provide extra security to its subscribers, it must abide by the laws of the land of the subscribers to enable the government for legitimate surveillance and also  for tackling online crimes. We now know that WhatsApp is now the most chosen medium to generate messages or spread messages /text/images (including those which are ‘illegal’). Often in cases of civil/political unrest, one may note that the police administration may suggest for complete blockage of messaging services like WhatsApp. This again falls under S.69A of the information Technology Act,2000(amended in 2008) which authorises the government to issue direction for blocking for public access of any information through any computer resource.
But when it comes to crimes against women and children, I see no positive development even after creating such extra layer of security.  There are instances of approaching women in their private whatsapp numbers for harassing them, accessing private photographs (already available in other social media and circulating them either ‘as it is’ or the morphed version of the same, threatening and blackmailing women with such images etc. What is more disturbing is, even after the encryption policies are rolled out by WhatsApp, no attempt has been taken to initiate a proper reporting mechanism. In the recently held UNICEF India meeting on expert consultation of online child safety, I had expressed my concern in this regard as well. At the most what an offended subscriber can do, is to block the harassing ‘number’ and leave a group if he/she is added to it without his/her consent. The harassing WhatsApp profile may still stay at large with the private images and information of the victim to upload them in other social media including YouTube or adult sites. Similarly, if not blocked, the harassing profile may continue to send bullying, derogatory, demeaning, insulting messages to the victim ‘uninterruptedly’. So what is the use of encryption policy then? It actually provides a half baked solution, i.e, protection against hacking. It may probably encourage more sexting because such images and messages may stay comfortably and permanently with the sender and the recipient only. But again, if there is a case of jilted love affair, no one, not even WhatsApp encryption policies may prevent possible creation of revenge porn materials on the same platform and also on the web. But here one must not be misguided by the fact that in such cases, the police would not be able to help nab the criminal due to encryption policies of WhatsApp. In such situations again, the law takes the same course of action as is the case for any other social media crimes against women, with off course limitations when the harasser is situated outside the jurisdiction of India, even though Information technology Act has extra jurisdictional scopes as well. 
          It is however unfortunate to note that unlike several EU countries and Canada, our courts and government are unable to take strong actions against the web companies who are not complying with the local laws in matters of assisting the governments and criminal justice machineries to nab the criminal or in the investigation. There are lots of techno-legal  issues which needs to be settled to achieve this in India, which includes proper training to the police, the lawyers and the judges. We have highest number of subscribers for WhatsApp, but awareness regarding safety issues is almost nil. Unless subscribers are made aware of the positive and negative sides of the technology that they are using, no policy, including this encryption policy may help reducing crimes online.
Let us spread awareness rather than defamatory ‘viral news’.  Lets join hands to stop cyber crimes against women.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2016),“WhatsApp encryptions:  does it really protect  women and children from cyber crimes?”24thApril, 2016, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/
CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA
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How we were able to remove Facebook groups victimising women through creating "Fake Avatars": A success story

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

While 25th November is celebrated as international day for Elimination of all forms of discrimination of women, I got to see the internet being flooded with “orange the world” messages. This is the particular term taken up by the United Nations to spread awareness about elimination of violence against women and inspired by UN, many stakeholders use #Orangetheworld to express their concern, share experiences and vows to fight against all forms of violence against women. I follow the rest here. I have never opted for any particular app to show my solidarity with any cause including that of Nirbhaya rape case when many men and women opted for showing black spot in their profile picture, judgements on 3rd gender case which motivated many to opt for rainbow coloured profile or even the recent Paris attack when many opted for French flag colour. This year, when the UN first started their #orangetheworldcampaign, the social media spread the colour. I changed both my Facebook and Twitter profiles to stand as one of the millions of ambassadors of the campaign. But did the Convention on elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, which advocates to stop violence against women, really prove beneficial to women especially for online violence cases? We need to consider the issue again and again. 
Couple of days ago a responsible citizen contacted me showing some Facebook links. These were of groups where adult women’s photos were randomly selected, posted and they were made to be “fake avatars” by adding extremely vulgar, indecent sexually explicit comments. These women were picked up mainly because they looked beautiful and had attractive physical structures which were enough to motivate these perverts. Some photos indicated that they may have been parts of promotional photos of television serials or modelling contracts; some were taken from beauty pageants as well. I was not contacted by any women or any of these victims or any women’s group.  The person who alerted me was a man and I salute him. When he came across these groups, he tried to report the groups, the images and the posts attached to the images which actually made these photographs typical fake avatars, rather sex-items. Facebook did not take any action. The main reason for this was, these victims were not children and Facebook did not recognise these posts as offensive. Here I must recall my meeting with child right activists, women’s right activists and transgender right activists at the meeting on Porn Panic Ban conference organised by Point of View and Internet Democracy last month at Delhi.  I was invited to speak about indecent representation of women on internet and I shared information about my work. I used this opportunity to learn about other’s experiences as well.  I got to know more details about the recent sensational case of Manikanta Prabhu, who was arrested for creating Facebook group with images of children and posting violent, sexually explicit messages about these children. This case and the case that I recently dealt with, are quite similar with only one difference: in my case, the victims are adults and in the other, victims were children. The noted child right activist who was incidental in moving the courts and making the accused get arrested in the later case, told me that Facebook refused to recognise the harmful language that were being posted targeting these children because these were mostly in vernacular language. The activist had rightly approached the court against such action of the Facebook.  While dealing with the case relating to adult women, I took note of the experience shared by the activist and mobilised support to report these groups as Facebook may respond to larger volume of reports. However, our  collective attempt remained unsuccessful.
It was only later that Facebook officials responded to my reports and mails and made me understand how to report such indecent representation. While from my side, such groups and posts were reported as ‘harassing’, seeing the images and the language of the posts, the post reporters who came up to support me, reported the same to Facebook as ‘nudity’. But ‘Nudity’ may have a completely different meaning as per Facebook ‘offence vocabulary’. Here lies the difference between Indian understanding of the term nudity and digital technological as well as western understanding of the term nudity. As such, the volume of the report grew basing on reports on ‘nudity’ and not ‘harassment’. As the officer from Facebook had told, these posts which present indecency in their overall presentation must be reported as ‘harassing’.  I feel extremely happy to say that finally these groups as well as the offending comments were restricted and were taken off by Facebook. This would not have happened unless Facebook considered my reports and again, renewed reports. This should be therefore noted that while Facebook or any other social media may not respond to reports positively, we need to understand the offence- related perspectives of the social media as well. However, it is an obvious fact that social media including Facebook and Twitter need to improve their own understandings and policies in such issues.  When we speak of ending violence against women in all forms, we need to understand that all stakeholders must act together to bring out a fruitful result.  I am anticipating that such groups may resurface on Facebook again because Facebook or any social media in that case, does not and cannot bar any individual from coming back to create another new identity with yet another set of false information.
Let us be prepared to fight such online harassment against women in a positive way.  
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2015), “How we were able to remove Facebook groups victimising women through creating fake avatars: A success story
”, 26-11-2015, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA
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The Elonis decision: why would Indian women feel bothered?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

The month of June opened with a ‘sweet surprise’ note for many free speech advocates when the US Supreme Court pronounced its decision in favour of Elinos, who was earlier convicted for posting violent messages in Facebook  fantasising killing of his estranged wife, who had a ‘protection order’ against Elinos.  His posts (which may no more be found in Facebook) ran like these : “There’s one way to love ya, but a thousand way to kill ya” ; “fold up your protective order and put it in your pocket. Is it thick enough to stop a bullet?”  He did not stop with his thoughts about harming his wife, he fantasised a school shooting and then targeting a female FBI agent also.  As I get to know from the text of the judgement, when Elinos’s boss came to know about it, he was fired and the concerned boss alerted the FBI as well.  May be because Elinos was targeting their own departmental staff in his ‘fantasy’, along with posting violent messages targeting schools that they started monitoring the posts made by him and subsequently he was indicted  under 18 USC S.875(c) (it says “Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both”) .After the Supreme Court judgement was published in the internet, concerned stakeholders published their own thoughts and opinions about the same.  While some felt that the judgement re-established the principles of free speech in regard to internet, some expressed concern regarding safety of women especially in domestic abuse cases.  Precisely, the court felt that the posts of Elonis were his own thoughts and even though the posts apparently seemed like threat messages to his wife or that the messages exposed his desire for a school shoot or harming a female FBI agent, the government failed to prove that the speaker’s (Elonis) ‘subjective intent’ was to execute the threats in real life. As Soraya Chemali and Mary Ann Frank in their writeup on the issue pointed out, “While the court did not go so far as to hold that a true threat turns on what the speaker intended to accomplish, the ruling suggests that the determination of what constitutes threat rests with the speaker and not his audience.”( See Chemali & Franks, Supreme Court may have online abuse easier, published on June 3, 2015 @ http://time.com/3903908/supreme-court-elonis-free-speech/?xid=tcoshare).
My attention is attracted to this particular judgement because Elonis was actually targeting women ( his wife and the female FBI agent) and children ( consider his post regarding school shoot out).  In its detailed judgement, it may be seen that the court was convinced by the defence of Elonis whereby he stated that he was actually posting those messages in the style of rap lyrics; that his posts were not direct threats that were to be executed like what happened for many other cold blooded murders or attacks including that of the blogger Abhijit Roy, who was supposedly sent warning messages by radical extremists who finally killed him in Bangladesh.  This judgement reminded me of our own Shreya Singhal vs. Union of India which struck down the controversial 66A. The US Supreme court  did not strike down any controversial laws, but it could motivate some stakeholders to think about the effect of laws, execution of the same and confusion among the legal fraternity regarding online abuse, especially targeting women. When the Indian Supreme court struck down 66A, while majority of the internet users, lawyers and supporters of free speech were happy, there were some including myself who expressed their concern . Is the judiciary paving a way for ‘abusers’ to escape the prosecution?  After the Shreya Singhal judgement was passed, many police officers told me that there would be a steep rise in online abuse now and we have to accept that these are but normal exercise of free speech. Nonetheless, women would continue to be the prime targets followed by transgender people, children and men. Surprisingly I was contacted by many journalists who expressed their anguish about lack of focussed laws on preventing online attack in the forms of bullying or trolling or threatening speech against women, celebrities, writers, journalists and also children. Our courts are oftener than not influenced by judgements of foreign courts; 66A judgement was no exception since the concept of free speech is being broadened basing on the understandings of the US and UK courts. When it comes to posting violent messages as Elonis did, in India, the women ( who may be targeted in the same fashion as the estranged wife of Elonis) would either leave the social networking sites, or may feel  extremely  traumatised  to speak about the issue, or may take up irrational modes like hiring hackers to remove those particular posts ( see Halder, D., & Jaishankar, K. (2015). Irrational Coping Theory and Positive Criminology: A Frame Work to Protect Victims of Cyber Crime. In N. Ronel and D. Segev (Eds.), Positive Criminology (pp. 276 -291). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-74856-8). Some women victims may  gather enough courage to report the matter to the police, but in my experience I have seen few successful endings in such cases.  The reason is simple; many police officers may think in the similar lines as the US Supreme Court  have thought “………..determination of what constitutes threat rests with the speaker and not his audience”. The case ends then and there when the victims are told to withdraw from social media or change the phone number. Unfortunately we still do not have ‘protective order’ types of orders for online abuse  especially when it comes to interpersonal attacks.  The police may cease the devices, destroy the SIM cards and the courts may pronounce jail term or bail. But in practice, nothing actually works. Unless the social media stops the accused from using his account, he may continue to misuse it by posting threatening messages and enjoy sadistically the fearful pleas, warnings or even gradual detoriation of the psychological health of the victim. If finally the social media or his other service provider blocks him, he may come back again with a new identity to continue the harassment.
While we boast of our laws for dealing with abuse and harassment of women, all is not always well. The courts need to see the practical points while acquitting posters of violent messages or hate messages.  Sometimes violent messages may really have the “road maps” for more actual violence even if the poster convinces the police as well the courts that he did not intend to harm actually.  From my experience I have seen how such messages may lead to graver misdeeds like creation of “fake avatars” ( I coined the term Fake Avatar which is defined as “a false representation of the victim which is created by the perpetrator through digital technology with or without the visual images of the victim and which carry verbal information about the victim which may or may not be fully true and it is created and floated in the internet to intentionally malign the character of the victim and to mislead the viewers about the victim’s original identity.”  see Halder Debarati,(2013) p. 197 “Examining the scope of Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 in the light of cyber victimisation of women in India” National law school journal, Vol 11,2013, 188-218)), or even extortion or stalking or online gang-attack.   It is high time that the law makers, police and the courts take note of the situation especially when it comes to digital safety of women.
Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2015), “The Elonis decision: why would Indian women feel bothered?
”6thJune, 2015, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA