CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN
Aishwarya Rai continues to be my dream actress since the day she appeared in the Indian cinemas for the first time. I have a chosen league of movie stars, television actors and media entertainment personalities whom I love to watch on the TV screen as well as in real life. Believe me, I was equally fascinated as well as shocked when I found them in the interent. I was fascinated because Facebook and Orkut helped me to connect with them, see their very private self. I was shocked because when I Google searched their names I got to see ugly sides of their public life. I know, there are thousands of “FANS’ like me who continuously lookout for new developments in their matinee idol’s lives. But there are “fans” who love to cherish these poor human beings in other ways. I saw Aishwarya’s "not wanted" pictures in some “Hot sites”. Others were also not spared, Katrina, Ceilina Jeitly, Raima Sen …….to name a few. Go for name searching in Orkut or Facebook and you will find umpteen numbers of good, bad, worst and even worser sites depicting female actors in unwanted ways. Cyber tactics are responsible for this. Most of the ‘hot pictures’ some one gets to see of these actors are doctored pictures .Some victims get to know this to their utter shock and , some feel the best way to reduce the menace is to avoid and ignore the paparazzi. But the problem is not limited to sexual depiction only. There are sites to hate them ,there are sites made *with* these poor human beings to show women from all walks of life what mutilation of virtual life could be, and there are people who love to let other know “see this woman of silver screen can beg for virtue”. Stalking, spreading bad gossips, threatening and blackmailing with already available pictures of these actors by cyber assistance have become a cake walk for perpetrators. What amuses me more is these women are even not spared when they want to network with their friends and family through social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace. Way back, I came across such impersonated profiles of leading TV stars which promised to give a “good time” once chatting session starts. My own cousin being in the film fraternity, I know personally how these poor victims of cyber crime can react.
The question is who does it and why it is done? One truth which surprises me is, the perpetrator could generally be a die hard fan who wants to come in touch with the actor by hook or crook. Again, doing pornography business with already available avatars of “wanted” faces is off course a lucrative venture…….well, once the technology works for the entrepreneur, there is no need to hire real life “models” .Ex spouses also fill the fuel sometimes.
When a fraction of these cases get reported, most of the time, more than the police, media investigates the issue and these piles up the humiliation. Imagine when the victim is an upcoming star having a good academic background (especially those who have chosen profession in media and entertainment leaving conventional job offers) and an erudite family and friend circle to lie upon, what psychological stress her peers could go through, leave her own mental state of affairs. No doubt, many times such types of cases are registered faster and given good priority for the name sake. But that does not solve the problem always. A personal meeting with the ‘heart throb’ and ‘promises’ to remove the links may end the case before the Judiciary gets the chance to experiment the case with newly formed protective laws. The story does not end here, this sets an example for other die hard fans to find out better ways to interact with the chosen actors.
Does any one care that this adds up to cyber harassments and the law remains mute spectator?
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