Since 16th March, 2020 most of the
countries started planning for partial lockdown for preventing the fast
spreading of Covid -19. By 22nd March, most of the countries in
Europe, Asia, Africa and in the USA , Australia etc called for total lock down.
India was no exception. Almost all universities, colleges, schools and other
workplaces faced the impact of lockdown. People including adults and children
became extremely confused as there was no specific indication as when worldwide
lock down would be lifted. Europe saw a rapid increase of the Covid-positive
patients. USA joined soon. Many Asian countries including India could not
afford to let people do their business as usual. Indian government called for a
lockdown period for 15 days first. But before the finishing the of 2 weeks
period, the government had to reconsider and extended the lockdown period till
3rd May, 2020. However, several State governments in India are
considering for further extension because the numbers of Covid 19 patients are
increasing. Schools and universities
decided to conduct online classes with huge preference to Zoom. Adults and
children shifted more to online entertainment because television industry came
to a standstill due to lockdown as well. However, the tele industry did
consider sharing old versions of the daily soaps.
While people went in lockdown, many took to internet
to entertain each other : social media sites including Facebook, Instagram,
YouTube, TikTok, and digital and internet communication apps like WhatsApp etc soon saw a flood of user generated
contents which are now hugely consumed by others. Not all of these user
generated contents are actually for entertainment for all. There were several
contents which were and are still being made specifically to target and harass women and girls. The
first platform that started getting contents for gender harassment, especially
harassment to women was Zoom app which was being used by most of the
educational institutes and workplaces for holding online meetings, classes,
webinars etc. In several cases it was seen that Zoom meetings were
unauthorizedly accessed by unwanted persons who started posting harassing,
sexually explicit comments, disrupted meetings with exposing private parts,
showing masturbation etc. Soon Zoom authorities came with a pubic declaration
that cyber security and safety measures of the platform were not strong enough
to tackle such sudden huge use.[1]
Who could actually be held responsible for such unauthorized access then? The
web platform implied that organizers of the zoom meetings and classes must take
precautionary measures. But were we really ready and aware and to take such
precautionary measures? Probably no. The
Zoom app mismanagement actually led to four kinds online crimes :
Unauthorized access to the meetings
Data privacy infringement
Creation of sexually explicit contents
Making gestures etc to harm the modesty of women
While this is just one kind of offence, online
harassment of women did not remain restricted to this only. Given the fact that
during lockdown most of the stakeholders of criminal justice machinery
including the police and courts and the web companies are working with limited
man power and infrastructure facilities, perpetrators have taken this time to
escalate harassment. The communication apps like Whatsapp, Facebook messenger
etc are now flooding with online bullying. This is seen especially in the
school and college groups. These platforms have become chosen platforms for throwing
harsh, insulting, intimidating comments towards classmates, batchmates and also
towards the teachers, especially female teachers, colleagues and users. I
myself had been targeted by some bullies and stalkers on Facebook messenger and WhatsApp as well.
Apart from this, the other patterns of online
harassment which has raised to a maximum height during the Covid -19 lockdown
stage, that came in my observation is creation of impersonating profiles on
social media. We must however appreciate the fact that impersonation by using
unique identities have been considered as an offence Under S.66C of the Information
Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008), which speaks about punishment for
identity theft and says “whoever, fraudulently or dishonestly make use of
the electronic signature, password or any other unique identification feature
of any other person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description
for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine
which may extend to rupees one lakh”
Several of such impersonating profiles are of the
nature of revenge porn. some may also
fall in the category of sexually explicit and voyeuristic contents , but may
not have the mens rea as that of revenge porn ( the element of revenge
taking mentality is not present), especially since these images may have been
captured in the public places or may have been collected from other profiles
etc.[2]
TikTok and YouTube are of no exception in this matter. People are restricted in
their homes; they have taken to TikTok content creations which may include
uploading contents including women doing different activities, that may have been captured in public places.
Consider videos showcasing women cooking and sweating, eating at weddings,
resting at home by lying down or in a leisure posture, women and girls walking
on the roads, at college/school campuses, working in a working place etc:
TikTok content creators may take such
audio visual images, pickup any specific posture of women that may be consumed
more by viewers and may upload such clippings with texts (sometimes sexually explicit)
and background sounds that may be available on Tiktok or may be created by the
users . One
must not forget that TikTok was questioned earlier on their lack of due diligence
for not taking down abusive contents earlier by Supreme court of India: Google
Play services removed TikTok from their platform as well. But soon TikTok
cleared all legal hassles and came back in android services again. [3]
No doubt, the App is back again for being (mis)used to harm the modesty of
women and infringing the privacy of women and children during quarantine time
when the victims may feel more restrained to reach out to criminal justice machinery
and the websites.
But we
should not think that this is an exclusive problem of India only. I did get to
hear about sudden growth of online harassment targeting women from different regions
of the world: be it USA, Australia, South Africa, UK , Ireland or even our neighbouring
countries like Nepal, Bangladesh or SriLanka .women, including working women,
volunteers who may have come to different Asian countries from the US etc, health
workers, law students and professionals, every where women are facing similar
problems to reach out to criminal justice system to report crimes. Even if they
may reach out, the police and the courts and the websites as well are not in a
position to offer a quick help.[4]
Several
stakeholders may provide several suggestions to stay safe online and maintain the
hygiene of the devices to save ourselves, especially women from rising level of
cyber crimes during lock down period. But
are we concerned about the mental health conditions and impact of victimisation
of online harassment on women during lock down? Several women may be living
with abusive partners, husbands who may have cheated on them, or even other
women family members who may have been victimised online and who may in order
to share the trauma, disclosed the victimisation to the former. Unlike trauma
that may generate from physical harassments, online harassments during lock
down may bring unique traumatising effects. Devices handled by women may be
detained and they may not be allowed to
contact anyone in case the harasser spreads his vicious net to reach out to
husband or other male members of the family. Victim women may even go to the
extent of self-harming too. They may even try to destroy the evidences of
online harassment by deleting the contents from their phones if the harassment
is in the nature of bullying or threatening message etc. In case of revenge
porn content or in the case of non-consensual image sharing, victims may even
try to block the profiles without saving the evidences. In several other cases,
they may take up irrational coping mechanism like counter bullying or
contacting the perpetrator asking him to take down the contents. they may even
try to contact amateur hackers, which may prove extremely dangerous for them. Emotionally
such women victims may become completely withdrawn and may even show aggressiveness
as well.
What could
be done in such situations as lock down in India has been extended for the
third time. My opinion in this regard is as follows:
Ø The police
control rooms in each district must open a dedicated 24-hour service unit
specially equipped with infrastructure and properly trained police personnel
who may handle such digital harassment cases and evidences to receive
complaints from the victims, especially women victims of online harassment.
Ø Some types
of online offences have been recognised by our domestic laws; some however have
not received any focussed laws. But that does not mean that only offences that
may contain complaints towards creating porn contents, threatening and
defamatory contents etc, may be given priority and FIR may be registered for
such offences which may fall within the meaning of cognizable offences. The
police must entertain all complaints and must guide the victims in all cases.
Ø Police
may rope in NGOs, cyber crime and cyber law experts to create an expert
committee in every district and metropolitan area to provide immediate counselling
to the victim as how to save the evidences of online harassments and how to
share the same with the police for the purpose of investigation.
Ø Victims may
get an immediate feel of relief when they are told that their complaints are
registered. The police therefore must not neglect to look into each type of
compliant. Such gestures from the police may prevent the women victims from committing
self harm or from taking any irrational steps to saver their reputation and that
of their families.
Ø Courts
and prosecutors must also consider extending their support whereby judicial
magistrates may join such endeavours to support the victims. We should remember
that it is only adults, but children may also be involved as victims as well as
perpetrators. Unless the courts are extending supports through electronic
mediums, it would become extremely difficult to win the trust of victims as
well as general public for Criminal Justice machinery at this time of lock
down.
Last but not
the least, we must not forget that in cases of online harassment of women, web companies
are the foremost liable sectors. The Due diligence clause must not be suspended
due to lock down. The web companies must consider each and every take down
request and reports on objectionable contents and must adhere to Indian legal understanding
for restricting the access to such contents.
Indeed,
the Lock down period is a testing time for the entire human civilization. But if
we do not restrict unethical and illegal usage of information technology, the
impact of online harassment may be more traumatizing than the Covid-19 experience.
Stay
safe, stay strong and do not misuse the Information and digital communication technology.
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 Debarati. (2020), "Covid-19 lock down and cyber victimization of women" “May 2nd, 2020, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
[1] See https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/govt-of-india-issues-advisory-says-zoom-not-secure-video-conferencing-platform/1930509/
[2] Halder.D(2017)
Criminalising Revenge Porn: Why Stakeholders Must Not Be Happy With Present
Legal Setup. Published in Livelaw.in magazine @
https://www.livelaw.in/criminalising-revenge-porn-stakeholders-must-not-happy-present-legal-setup/
[3] https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/features/story/tiktok-is-back-on-app-stores-from-ban-to-court-order-here-s-everything-you-need-to-know-1513644-2019-04-30
[4] For
more, see https://kathmandupost.com/national/2020/04/23/how-one-pokhara-resident-led-a-smear-campaign-to-get-an-american-kicked-out-of-the-country
