CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER
A woman can be made (in)‘famous’ if she is portrayed ‘topless’ or ‘shameless’. The ongoing tussle over the issue of "topless Kate" is a glaring example as how women are repeatedly victimised through the internet, be it the Duchess of Cambridge,or any other woman who becomes the victim of voyeurism. If the victim is a woman who was not known to the world previously, expect her to be ‘re known ’ (if not well known) by some people whom she never expected to know her in her life time. As on date, I got to see huge media attention to the power of the internet for spreading religious clashes in almost all over the world; along with that 'Kate Middleton' became even more hugely searched topic in the search engines not because of her royal position, but because of her perfectly toned naked upper body which is now prominent due to the French magazine which breached into her privacy. Topless Kate was available with hundreds of Twitter users also; when I was jotting down my thoughts for this blog on 17th September, she was still being displayed in spite of the warnings from the British royals, civil charges and amidst of plans for slapping criminal charges. But this particular woman belongs to those layers of people who know how to handle privacy breaching cases and can afford to slap criminal charges against a magazine and subsequently she may also successfully stop the world wide net including the social media giant Twitter from distributing her private pictures. The ‘Rian Gigg super injunction case’, also from the UK, would show the way to tame public social media with private laws. Quite similar to her is the case of BettinaWulff, the wife of former German president, who has been portrayed as a prostitute; Google as a search engine has made her more (in)famous. She has also applied private laws to prevent public humiliation through internet.
A woman can be made (in)‘famous’ if she is portrayed ‘topless’ or ‘shameless’. The ongoing tussle over the issue of "topless Kate" is a glaring example as how women are repeatedly victimised through the internet, be it the Duchess of Cambridge,or any other woman who becomes the victim of voyeurism. If the victim is a woman who was not known to the world previously, expect her to be ‘re known ’ (if not well known) by some people whom she never expected to know her in her life time. As on date, I got to see huge media attention to the power of the internet for spreading religious clashes in almost all over the world; along with that 'Kate Middleton' became even more hugely searched topic in the search engines not because of her royal position, but because of her perfectly toned naked upper body which is now prominent due to the French magazine which breached into her privacy. Topless Kate was available with hundreds of Twitter users also; when I was jotting down my thoughts for this blog on 17th September, she was still being displayed in spite of the warnings from the British royals, civil charges and amidst of plans for slapping criminal charges. But this particular woman belongs to those layers of people who know how to handle privacy breaching cases and can afford to slap criminal charges against a magazine and subsequently she may also successfully stop the world wide net including the social media giant Twitter from distributing her private pictures. The ‘Rian Gigg super injunction case’, also from the UK, would show the way to tame public social media with private laws. Quite similar to her is the case of BettinaWulff, the wife of former German president, who has been portrayed as a prostitute; Google as a search engine has made her more (in)famous. She has also applied private laws to prevent public humiliation through internet.
Note that
both Kate and Bettina belong to European Union countries whose private laws are
daring to control the First Amendment Guarantees for Free Speech and Expression
of the US, which is the core basis for social media including Google, Facebook
and Twitter. These two women not only have monetary power to sue these web
giants, they can also withstand the bypassing storm of media highlights,
criticisms, sympathies, empathies and even appreciation; credit goes to their
social and political backgrounds which made them realise what are their rights
and what are the duties of others. But this is not the case of thousands of
women who may have similar painful victimisation stories like Kate and Bettina.
I remember a non-formal conversation with one of the Swiss presenters of Sweden
Criminology Symposium this June. I was impressed by his presentation; he
further impressed me by giving wonderful information: women in Sweden have cut
off the feeling of shame from sexual victimisations like rape. This has
actually motivated them to come up and report the matter to the police. Even though
he was speaking on child victimisation in the internet, he emphasised the fact
that this very feeling of women has actually gone a long way to combat so
called online eve-teasers. But in practise, I get to see a very different
picture almost every day; women from all over the world, including these
European countries face terrible hurdles to seek legal help or police attention
when they fall victims of crimes such as Kate or Bettina. Either the police
ridicule them, or they can not afford a legal battle due shortage of funds. Resultant,
victimisation of women in the net escalates.
Indian experience is no different. Women have not yet
gathered that courage like their European or the US counterparts to cut off the
feeling of shame; the situation is even worse with the police ineffectiveness.
I dont blame the criminal justice system, for they are not given proper chance
to increase their understanding in such cases largely due to the attitude of
the victims. Well, exceptions are there. A young woman reportedly came up with not
so pleasing comments in the Facebook page regarding the police ineffectiveness for an
F.I.R that she lodged for theft of her vehicle (see http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/article3913094.ece).
She did not fall prey to typical category of cyber victimisation of women; but
she shamelessly displayed her anger and frustration.But she actually did fall a
victim as her right to speech and expression was gagged. She represents women
who face similar humiliation from criminal justice machinery and finally they
give up their claims for fair justice and loose hope from the machinery. It is
only when women victims especially of cyber crimes, are given a patient hearing
and immediate relief by the law and justice machinery that they can win over
the feeling of shame as their western counter parts. This would in turn go a
long way in preventing unethical hacking activities too.
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. (2012), “Topless
and shameless women always top the internet search lists”, 19th September,2012, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com
