Image curtsy : Google
Off-late I have been getting to see many incidences of trolling on personal pictures
of individuals, especially women on Instagram. These photos may include photos
of young women and girls in trendy clothes, showing more skin than expected by
orthodox societies. Such pictures may attract the attention of self-acclaimed
moral police trolls who wish to condemn women for their choice of outfits;
these trolls use extremely harsh words which may even go to the extent of
threatening women for their choices. They may even broaden their harassment
pattern by sharing the target pictures through different profiles to defame the
victims, threat the victims and create many more morphed images of the victims
and this may go on till the victims reach a stage to withdraw from the social
media. This indeed generates various levels of criminal liability, some of
which have been addressed by laws in India. Apart from self-acclaimed moral
police trolls, several women have also complained of fashion police trolls who
intentionally data mine and troll women, whose fashion sense according to the
trolls is not upto the mark. Unlike the moral police trolls, the fashion police
trolls may not create security or life
risking threats, but they may definitely target the reputation of the victims
and their self-esteem.
Now
let us see what sorts of harm or damage can be done by both types of trolls:
trolling
can creation of threat, intimidation
trolls
necessarily create posts which are defamatory; these can be teasing
remarks and extremely insulting comments
trolling
can result in reputation damage, violation of privacy, unauthorised access to
data, copyright violation (in certain cases)
Trolls
are necessarily bullies. But bullying and trolling are not the same. Trolling
can be more vicious than bullying. Trolling infact attracts more perpetrators
and more victims in the same thread. These victims and perpetrators may not be
known to each other previously; resultant, the new “victims” who
may have joined the thread to support or disagree with the primary victim may finally put all blames to the primary victim
for the victimisation by way of trolling. Trolling is more public than
bullying. As such the effects of trolling may be more traumatising than
bullying. Trolling can not only damage reputation of the primary victims,
trolls may go a long way to harass cyber bystanders or commenters who may
support or disagree with the victims as well as with the trolls. The situation
worsens if these bystanders or commenters are women; trolls may threaten these
secondary victims with legal consequences (for aggravating the issues) which
may force the latter to withdraw from social media just like the primary
victims.
This
may adversely affect women’s usage of Instagram : Instagram unlike Facebook may
instantly help the user to get connected with people/group with common interest
especially when the user uses the hashtags. The pictures/videos armed with
hashtags may help the user to reach a wider audience. Several people including
women aspiring to showcase their creativity in fashion industry, upcoming
models, actors singers, anchors, performers etc, who use the platform for
getting connected with the industry people, mentors and a wider audience, may
suffer hugely if trolls attack them on Instagram. Victims may not only feel
completely withdrawn, they may also be pulled into unnecessary legal tangles
especially if the trolls misuse their pictures which may have been uploaded by
the victims for promoting certain brands (which in turn may not appreciate such
negative publicity of their product).
But this in no way should mean that
women should restrain from uploading pictures on Instagram. There are several
ways to protect the privacy, reputation and the copyright of the pictures of
the users :
1. Women and girls should always opt for privacy
options in Instagram. This may reduce the responsibility of the users and
increase that of the website. The victims may directly charge the websites for
not applying due diligence and
neglecting the security features which should have restricted unwanted
people from infringing the privacy and copyrights. Further, in case the women
wish to make the profiles open for public and had been
harassed/trolled/stalked/unauthorisedly accessed etc, the victims must report
the matter to the websites. The websites would not be letting the victim know
the about the original identity of the harasser in case the profile is that of
unknown person/s; but they would be duty bound to repair the damage, i.e. ,
restrict the unauthorised circulation of the image of the victim and generating
anymore message that may harm the reputation of the victims. S.79(3) of the
Information technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008) (exceptions to exemption from
liability of intermediary in certain cases)
may be applied in such cases.
2. Indian laws do not recognise online trolling
and bullying as separate offences. This definitely had created problems for
proper justice delivery to the victims. However, basing on the modus operandi
for trolling several penal provisions may be applied; for instance, S.509
(punishment for harming the modesty of women), 507 (criminal intimidation by
anonymous person), 499 and 500 (defamation and punishment for the same), 354D
(punishment for stalking including cyber stalking) of the IPC may be used for
posting intimidating, insulting, defamatory comments, stalking, creating
threats etc.
3. If trolling results in creation of Fake
avatars especially sexually explicit contents, obscene contents etc, and if
this involves unauthorised access to data, manipulation of data etc, the police
may also apply provisions including Ss. 43(unauthorized access to the computer, data etc) 66 (punishment for computer related
offences), 66C (punishment for fraudulently using password, unique
identification features etc of any other person), 66D (punishment for cheating
by impersonation), 66E (violation of privacy)(incase the picture has been used
to create morphed pictures/images), 67 (punishment for creating sexually
explicit contents), 67A (punishment for creating obscene contents ) of the
Information technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008), S.354C IPC(punishment for
voyeurism) etc. Police may also necessarily apply provisions from Indecent
representation of women (prohibition )Act, 1986 for indicting the accused for
indecent representation of the victim online.
Some
of the above mentioned laws are non bailable and cognizable. This means that
trolling may not be considered as a simple offence especially if it results in
heavy offences including creation of sexually explicit contents ( the contents
include not only the images, but the texts as well) etc. As such, women should
not refrain from using Instagram fearing trolling. But they must be aware of
their rights against trolling and the duties of the websites.
Let
us unite against misogynist trolling. Let us spread the message that trolling,
its modus operandi and its consequences should not be taken lightly and the
criminal justice machinery must emphasise with the victims of trolling.
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),
" Trolling on Instagram photos: should women restrain from uploading
personal pictures?” 15th January, 2019, published in
http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
