Need for a model prohibitory provision for preventing and punishing Cybercrimes targeting women

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

The festive seasons not only bring joy and happiness, but also brings tinges of tensions, disappointment, frustrations and unnecessary worries especially for women and girls. This is because of the negative use of digital and information technology; women and girls may be photographed inappropriately, touched inappropriately and may be photographed in such conditions, they may be stalked, their data may be unauthorisedly accessed and misused and over all, they may also be targeted for revenge porn. It may generally happen even during non-festive seasons too. But during the festive seasons such off-line and online harassment targeting women may increase more. In my previous research I have observed that this may happen due to two main reasons : lack of strict central laws relating to public place photography and engagement of the police force in crowd management. It may necessarily become almost impossible to protect every woman and girl in the crowds from the perpetrators who may be digitally empowered to violet the privacy.  The second reason plays a major role in motivating the perpetrators to take the harassment of women and girls online so that victims may not be able to understand the impact of victimisation immediately; simultaneously the perpetrators may not only satisfy their sadistic ego by harassing women and girls online, but may also gain unethically by  supplying the voyeur pictures and clippings to adult sites and even to YouTube. By the time  the victims understand and feel the impact of victimisation, their reputation may have been badly damaged due to viral spreading of the images.  

A year back the ministry of women and children rolled out project for portal to complain about online harassment. But this could neither reduce the alarming growth of online victimisation of women. The reason could be ill drafted laws and poor execution of the existing laws. These ill drafted laws may include S.66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008) which prescribed punishment for offensive, annoying etc speech, which was later scrapped off in the case of Shreya Singhal vs Union of india & others (however, the Information Technology Act has not been amended so far to either amend or delete this provision from the present version of the Provision); Ss. 354 C and D of the Indian Penal Code which speaks about voyeurism and cyber stalking, S.509 of the Indian Penal Code which speaks about word gesture etc about harming the modesty of women etc.[1] I have also created a model law for penalising revenge porn and had submitted the same to the ministry of women and child affairs.[2] However, no step has been taken on this so far even though revenge porn does exist in the Indian cyber space context as well.

It needs to be noted that the internet has provided a broader platform for expressing views and opinions and women are using it share their opinion on various issues including sexual harassment that may have been meted out to them through Me too movement. But this would definitely have another side of the coin. Many women may prefer to bring up the issue of sexual harassment on public platforms through social media; but the accused persons may neither leave these victims on the cyber space. They may try to counter attack them through trolls, bullies and hired-hackers who may try to vandalise the victims reputations online by infringing the digital privacy of the Me Too fighters. This in other ways may also affect the documentary evidences that the victim/s may have saved in their electronic devices for further court proceedings.

At this juncture It is time that  the existing law must be amended to include provisions for offensive communication and revenge porn. On behalf of Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling a  draft model Law  is proposed as below:

Model law for prohibiting Cybercrime against women

Chapter 1 : preliminary

S.1 Extent and purpose:

It extends to the whole of India.

It has been seen that even though Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013 has introduced several new provisions for the safety of women, but still there exists lacuna. Further, the Information technology Act, 2000 (amended in 2008) also failed to prevent crimes against women which include cyber bullying, trolling and revenge porn.

In view of the above, this model law is proposed to bring amendment to (a) the present provisions especially in the Indian penal Code (specifically in Ss. 354 C & D) and insert new provision for prohibiting and punishing revenge porn, (b) amend and introduce new version of S.66A to create preventive law to prevent offensive communication including bullying, trolling, online harassment etc against women and individuals in general, (c) to introduce special provision in the Information technology Act, 2000 (amended in 2008) to provide confidentiality to the victims.

Chapter 2 : Proposed amendments

S.2 Insertion of a new provision on Revenge porn:[3]

The model Revenge porn prohibitory provision :(This can be included in Chapter XVI of the Indian Penal Code as S.354E, which may be inserted after S.354D (stalking)).

1.    Anyone, who in order to satisfy his anger and frustration for a broken relationship, takes revenge  through publishing, transmitting, conveying, publicizing false and sexually provocative portrayal of his/her victim, by misusing the information that he may have known naturally and that he may have stored in his personal computer, or that which may have been conveyed to his electronic device by the victim herself, or may have been stored in the device with the consent of the victim herself; and which may have been done to publicly defame the victim essentially, commits the offence of revenge porn.

2.    Whoever commits the offence of revenge porn, shall be punished in the first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than one year, but which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine of not less than 1 lakh rupees and pay reasonable compensation to the victim for damaging his/her reputation in real life and online. If he be punished on a second or subsequent conviction, he 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 of not less than 5 lakh Rupees and reasonable compensation to the victim.

 Provided that the perpetrator must also be liable to remove the offensive image either original or morphed, irrespective of the fact whether the image was conveyed to him by the victim herself or not, from his own electronic device/s and from the websites and social media profiles where he may have uploaded the same for the purpose of taking revenge.

Provided further, that the investigating officer shall immediately after coming to know of the offence of revenge porn committed by the perpetrator as reported by the victim or anyone on behalf of the victim, contact the concerned website to remove such contents including any text accompanying the image/s which may falsely portray the victim.

Provided further that if the website concerned fails to cooperate with the police on being alerted by the investigating police officer and also if the website concerned fails to remove the content within 36 hours  after being alerted by the victim herself, the said website would not be exempted from third party liability as has been explained under S.79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (amended in 2008) and would be liable to pay compensation to the victim for an amount not less than Rs. 5 lakhs and also fine.

Explanation:

In Subsection 1, the words “publishing, transmitting, conveying, publicizing false and  sexually provocative portrayal of his/her victim” shall include  publishing, transmitting, conveying  any image of woman whether nude, semi-nude or normal to anyone individual and/or to any website including social media, with an intention to take revenge on that said woman.

(Rationale behind proposing a new law: Why S.354C IPC would not be able to regulate revenge porn:

1.    S.354C IPC speaks about voyeurism which is inclusive of “private acts” whereby victim’s private body parts may be shown. It does not mention anything about publishing/conveying/morphing etc of pictures of women for taking revenge. The ultimate motive, i.e., taking revenge is absent here.

2. S.354C does not speak about morphed pictures published/conveyed/transferred etc for gratifying revenge. In cases of revenge porn, majority of the offensive images may be morphed. This has neither been covered under S.66E of the Information Technology Act.

3.    Creation of revenge porn may be done with normal, innocent, un-morphed pictures as well. In such case, we need to look into the accompanying text that describes the image. For example, a normal picture of the woman victim may be published with a text describing her as “horny”, “Prostitute”, “my sexy wife during honeymoon”(when in reality, the woman is not married to the perpetrator, or even if married, did not allow publication of such normal photo with such text ).

4.    Revenge porn differs from non-consensual pornography as well. Non-consensual pornography is a larger term which may include revenge porn, voyeurism or even sexual slavery including forcing the woman to be captured naked for some unethical gain. Hence, revenge porn needs a separate definition.)

S.3.  Amendment to the definition of voyeurism under S.354C of the Indian Penal Code (punishment for voyeurism) : In the place of “Any man”, it should  Any one and the amended provision should be  read as follows:

Any one who watches, or captures the image of a woman engaging in a private act in circumstances where she would usually have the expectation of not being observed either by the perpetrator or by any other person at the behest of the perpetrator or disseminates such image shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than one year, but which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine, and be punished on a second or subsequent conviction, 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.

Explanations:   For the purpose of this section, “private act” includes an act of watching carried out in a place which, in the circumstances, would reasonably be expected to provide privacy and where the victim’s genitals, posterior or breasts are exposed or covered only in underwear; or the victim is using a lavatory; or the victim is doing a sexual act that is not of a kind ordinarily done in public.

  

Where the victim consents to the capture of the images or any act, but not to their dissemination to third persons and where such image or act is disseminated, such dissemination shall be considered an offence under this section.

S.4. Amendment to S.354D of the Indian Penal Code (punishment for stalking including cyber stalking): In the place of Any man, it should be anyone. The amended version should be read as follows:

1) Anyone who—

   follows a woman and contacts, or attempts to contact such woman to foster personal interaction repeatedly despite a clear indication of disinterest by such woman; or

   monitors the use by a woman of the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication,commits the offence of stalking;

 Provided that such conduct shall not amount to stalking if the man who pursued it proves that—

it was pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime and the man accused of stalking had been entrusted with the responsibility of prevention and detection of crime by the State; or

  

it was pursued under any law or to comply with any condition or requirement imposed by any person under any law; or

  

in the particular circumstances such conduct was reasonable and justified.

 (2) Whoever commits the offence of stalking shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine; and be punished on a second or subsequent conviction, with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, and shall also be liable to fine.

(Rationale behind broadening the concept of perpetrator for Ss.354 C&D: It has been seen that women may also commit voyeurism and cyber stalking for victimising fellow women.  This amendment may help reduce such sorts of victimisation.)

S.5. Insertion of new provision prohibiting photography of individuals in general without the consent of the individuals concerned (this may be inserted after S.268 of the Indian penal Code as S.268A)

1. Anyone who uses his camera devices in any public place to capture the images of anyone including men, women, children, people belonging to LGBT groups, with a motive to either sexual gratification of the self, or sexual gratification of others, or uses these images for unethical gain, or for ridiculing or causing hatred,  defamation , damage to the reputation of the said persons by way creating, circulating, spreading etc of such images through electronic medium  without the consent of  such men, women, children  or member of LGBT group when the said men, women, children, or member of LGBT group are  not expected to give consent and/or not expected to be alert for not allowing such photography,  and also publishes, transmits, circulates the same through electronic medium shall be punished with an imprisonment  of either description for a term which shall not be less than six months r, but which may extend to one year , and shall also be liable to fine of not less than 20 thousand  rupees and pay reasonable compensation to the victim for damaging his/her reputation in real life and online. If he be punished on a second or subsequent conviction, he shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than one  year, but which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine of not less than 50 thousand Rupees and reasonable compensation to the victim.

 Provided that the perpetrator must also be liable to remove the non-consensual offensive image either original or morphed, from his own electronic device/s and from the websites and social media profiles where he may have uploaded the same for the purpose mentioned above.

Provided further, that the investigating officer shall immediately after coming to know of the offence mentioned above committed by the perpetrator as reported by the victim or anyone on behalf of the victim, contact the concerned website to remove such contents including any text accompanying the image/s which may falsely portray the victim.

Provided further that if the website concerned fails to cooperate with the police on being alerted by the investigating police officer and also if the website concerned fails to remove the content within 36 hours  after being alerted by the victim herself, the said website would not be exempted from third party liability as has been explained under S.79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (amended in 2008) and would be liable to pay compensation to the victim for an amount not less than Rs. 5 lakhs and also fine.

Explanation:

In Subsection 1, the words “capture images” shall also include  capturing images of accident victims and doing so without offering any help to the victim, any other heinous, serious or petty crimes and doing so without reporting the matter to the police and offering help to the victim, capturing images of  rape or sexual molestation or sexual assault of any women or children, taking self portraits or selfies in the above situations.

Explanation 2: The act of capturing the images of men, women, children and members of the LGBT groups may not be considered as an offence if the same is done for academic and research purposes, provided the person/s capturing such images has prior consent of proper authorities, or for medical research purposes or for the purpose of creating documentary evidences which must be provided to the criminal justice machinery including the courts for further legal actions to punish the wrong doers.

S.6. Amendment to Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008):

Punishment for offensive speech (this can be inserted after S.66 (offences related to the computer) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (amended in 2008). This may also be considered as the amended version of S.66A (punishment for annoying etc speech), which was scrapped off by the Supreme court in Shreya Singhal’s case)

1.      Anyone who sends, posts produces, publishes, creates, circulates or sponsors to be circulates  any offensive speech including any text or cartoon or caricature or image accompanied with text to any woman by way of electronic, digital and information communication, which may damage her reputation, damage the reputation of her family and  children create threat to her, her family and children, damage her reputation to an extent that may affect her job or may affect her reputation in the prospective job, shall be punished with an imprisonment for in the first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than one year, but which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine of not less than 1 lakh rupees and pay reasonable compensation to the victim for damaging his/her reputation in real life and online. If he be punished on a second or subsequent conviction, he 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 of not less than 5 lakh Rupees and reasonable compensation to the victim.

 Provided that the perpetrator must also be liable to remove the offensive speech from his own electronic device/s and from the websites and social media profiles where he may have published etc the said speech targeting the woman.

Provided further, that the investigating officer shall immediately after coming to know of the offence of posting, publishing etc of the offensive speech committed by the perpetrator as reported by the victim or anyone on behalf of the victim, contact the concerned website to remove such contents including any text accompanying the image/s which may falsely portray the victim and damage her reputation.

Provided further that if the website concerned fails to cooperate with the police on being alerted by the investigating police officer and also if the website concerned fails to remove the content within 36 hours  after being alerted by the victim herself, the said website would not be exempted from third party liability as has been explained under S.79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (amended in 2008) and would be liable to pay compensation to the victim for an amount not less than Rs. 5 lakhs and also fine.

Explanation:

For the purpose of this section, offensive speech targeting women shall include the followings:

1.      Any speech which lowers the moral character of the woman concerned within the meaning of Article 19(2) of the constitution of India.

2.    Any speech which defames the woman concerned in the society as a whole within the meaning of Article 19(2) of the constitution of India as well as Ss.499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code and Indecent representation of women Prohibition Act.

3.    Any speech which includes Cyber bullying. Cyber bullying  may mean attacking anyone with harsh or rude  words in the cyber space, including publicly available web platforms, social media, private and public  chat rooms, emails, blogs etc, and such harsh or rude words are particularly made to ridicule one’s body shape, gender, gender orientation, physical or mental incapability, race, colour, opinion, educational background, language  etc.

4.    Any speech which includes Cyber trolling. Cyber trolling is  an extreme usage of freedom of speech which is exercised to disrupt the community discussions in social networking sites and which is done to deliberately insult ideologies such as feminism, secularism etc; of the topic starter or the supporters of the topic starter.

5.     Any speech which contains Cyber hate propaganda. Cyber hate propaganda may mean offensive communication between the sender and multiple recipients with intent to spread hatred against a particular individual for her opinion, race, gender etc.

It is expected that if this model Act is considered by the government, the growing rate of cyber crimes against women may be brought down.

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), " Need for a model prohibitory provision for preventing and punishing Cybercrimes targeting women”  22^nd October 2018 , published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com

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[1] My observations on these laws can be found in my book. (Cyber Crimes against Women in India. New Delhi: SAGE Publishing. ISBN: 978-9385985775, https://in.sagepub.com/en-in/sas/cyber-crimes-against-women-in-india/book253900  (co-authored with Professor K.Jaishankar.

[2] See the model law @Halder.D(2017) Criminalizing Revenge Porn From The Privacy Aspects: The Model Revenge Porn Prohibitory Provision. Available @

 at: https://www.livelaw.in/criminalizing-revenge-porn-privacy-aspects-model-revenge-porn-prohibitory-provision/

[3] This was published in supra@2

The irresistible misogynist trolls in the social media

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

With another new year, I enter the 9^th year as a blogger. In these 9 years I got to see emergence  of different sorts of crimes against women on the cyber space. While in India the most bothersome type of victimisation targeting women is definitely creating fake avatars in the social media or in the adult networking websites, one can understand that emergence of irresistible misogynist trolls in the social media also claims attention of every one now. Way back in 2013 in my article “Examining the scope of Indecent representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986, in the light of Cyber Victimization of Women in India”, published in National Law School Journal, 11, 188-218, I researched about fake avatars and trolls. These topics later found vital places in my Ph.D dissertation thesis only to remind me that these issues will never die until the victim lets them die a natural death either by ignoring them or by reporting the matter to the concerned authorities.

          Trolls find a unique place in social media especially in India because they are not ‘recognised’ by any laws in India as specific ‘offenders’. They feel ‘overpowered’ because of this to express their opinions in several threads, blog posts, media news clippings etc. However, they stand apart from other individuals who express their opinions because of their language in which they communicate: it is impolite, arrogant, hateful and often misogynist. There are different types of trolls who communicate their expression in such way. These may include workplace place trolls, information seeking trolls, lime-light seeking trolls, fan-club trolls, educational institute trolls, activist trolls racist trolls, political trolls, State sponsored trolls and also misogynist trolls in particular. The list may include many other types of trolls existing in social media and on internet in general. Misogynist trolls take to internet and social media to disrupt discussion about women, which may include discussions about welfare measures as well. One such example is this continuous publication of troll posts, which appeared in the official Facebook page of ministry of women and child development (MWCD) when the concerned minister Ms.Maneka Gandhi, announced for several welfare measures for women including the publication of Handbook on sexual harassment of women at workplace. While many stakeholders expressed their opinions in these threads in Facebook, misogynist trolls found their own way to entertain themselves by insulting others, especially women. Among these, one troll post which repeatedly targeted women, expressed anger on the issue of safety of women in the workplace, other expressed anger for the issue of special treatment of women . The bone of the contention was, if women can not endure workplace politics and back biting, which is often seen as ‘workplace harassment’ by researchers and activists, then it is best for women to stay at home and cook for their husbands.  Some women protested the troll posts. Some chose to ignore. But these troll posts started growing in number because no one actually banned them , but may have chose to block them personally. I noticed one such troll post and reported the matter to the Facebook as well as the Facebook page of MWCD.  Fortunately my report was accepted with a positive note from Facebook which removed the misogynist troll posts. But this may be a temporary arrangement for no one was booked for any ‘offence’ and as such, the opinions thus expressed in the FB page of MWCD  may not actually invite any penal sanctions because they are not targeting any particular individual, but women as a whole. Resultant, the troll posts are back in the same FB page in different forms, showcasing hatred towards women in different forms. Their omnipotent presence is felt everywhere even in Twitter or Google hangout and they are becoming more powerful understanding that using hateful words targeting women may make them more (in)famous to gain easy lime light.

          While S.66A of the Information Technology Act was in use, many people had used it as well as misused it. But hardly any one, including the police could properly use it for preventing such misogynist trolls or opinions. I being an ardent fan of positive use of S.66A argued for using it to prevent such misogynist opinions, racists’ comments, personal defamatory remarks etc on many occasions. Unfortunately  in many occasions, either victims were not ready to take the matter to the court and press for a good experiment of this law, or the police showed complete apathy to such issues, which they felt were trivial. Many activists suggested that trolls and bullies may be regulated under different provisions, and S.66A should not be made alive because of this. But I opine differently. In my recent article “A Retrospective Analysis Of Section 66 A:Could Section 66 A Of The Information Technology Act Be Reconsidered For Regulating “Bad Talk” In The Internet?” Published in Indian Student Law Review (ISLR), 2015(1), pp 98-128, I documented my opinions in this regard. But as I researched in this particular article, if misogynist trolls can not be regulated because their posts  may not give rise to threat to any particular woman ( as it had happened in the case of Elonis decision), it does not mean that they can grow with no fear of checks and balances. The moment troll posts step into defamatory posts, the victim can and should consider taking the troll to the proper authorities.

          But here again lies the problem of understanding: if the troll posts affect a more ‘powerful victim,’ say for example, a corporate house for any particular product of them, or a particular group of people, they may decide to take action against troll collectively. But if it is an individual victim, the apathy of the social media as well as the police may make the trolls more powerful.  When social media does not take any heed to the plea of the victim to prevent the troll from his activities, the troll may start posting more vigorously with a twisted message as how he remains literally ‘uncontrollable’. It is nothing but provocation to the victim to counter response so that the troll can counter attack.  Unless the police take a serious note by not considering this as trivial, the trolls may continue attacking their victims unless they get bored. It is expected that the concerned authorities, especially the MWCD may take note of the situation and implements regulatory provisions to control such disruptive activities in the name of free speech.

 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), “The irresistible misogynist trolls in the social media”

8^th February, 2016, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

#Selfiewithdaughter with a tinge of misogyny

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

In my blog sometimes back I wrote about privacy issues in regard to sharing selfies in social media @ http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.in/search/label/selfie . I myself am a selfie fan but as I said in my earlier blog, I am concerned about the privacy issues and I avoid sharing selfies publicly. I broke this rule when I started campaigning for a novel cause: for spreading awareness regarding wearing helmet. I created a hashtag #selfieinhelmet and put my own #selfieinhelmet in Twitter and Facebook to invite my friends and general public to share theirs. Till now, I haven’t received much success except a few women friends of mine who wear helmets despite being conscious about their hairstyle.  I shared my concern with almost all the news media  Tweet handles I follow, some celebrities and my friends. Many of them retweeted, shared #selfieinhelmet. I am still awaiting for people to share their real #selfieinhelmet. But while doing this, I came across another novel idea : #selfiewithdaughter to boost the campaign for raising girl children by families especially in northern Indian regions where daughters are still considered as ‘burdens’ to the families. Started by Sunil Jaglan, the sarpanch of Bibipur village in Hariyana to strengthen the Central government’s save the daughter campaign, #selfiewithdaughter became immensely trending issue when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi  invited all parents, especially fathers to share their #selfiewithdaughter . Social media like Twitter and Facebook was flooded with selfies of proud fathers with their lovely daughters. Women also started sharing their selfies with daughters and finally I got to see many #selfiewithduaghter with both the parents lovingly sharing the space with their daughters. It was a wonderful feeling indeed. But at the same time, many including I myself felt that the #selfiewithdaughter ‘movement’ must be guarded with a note of caution : we all know the presence of paedophiles, women abusers and pranksters  in the social media and how they may work to collect images of girls and women to make illegal and unethical money  from porno industry. I shared my thought by Tweeting  “#selfiewithdaughter may not always b safe in#socialmedia” through my tweet handle @DrDebaratiH . Within a few minutes I got to see the highest  trending topic changed into Kavita Krishnan, and #selfiewithdaughter came down to the second position. The power of social media is amazing!  Why an individual activist should be pulled up in social media by hundreds of Tweeteratties amidst this beautiful campaign of save the daughters? Because Kavita opined her concern about privacy of daughters. But her words were harsher than anyone else and it directly targeted the Prime Minister himself. From her Tweet handle @ Kavita_krishnan she Tweeted “careful beforesharing #selfiewithdaughter with #LameduckPM. He has a record of stalkingdaughters”. Nonetheless, many did not like her post. This was nothing to do with the present #selfiewithdaughter campaign apparently, but  it was in relation to (as the news media tells) an old allegation where controversy brewed up when apparently a particular  political leader was audiotaped conversing with police officers for tracking a particular woman under the direction of “saheb” (Narendra Modi, the then chief Minister of Gujarat). Personally I could not fully agree with  Krishnan for  her this particular statement made in relation to #selfiewithdaughter campaign. She had used her right to speech and expression to opine her concern from political perspective; but I understand that it may have an underlying concern regarding breaching of privacy of women and girl children in the social media. But I felt her concern could have been shown more neutrally keeping the political issue aside. However, we need to remember that she has every right to express her thoughts in her own ways. But this very thought of her attracted trolls to diversify the campaign of #selfiewithdaughter and bring Krishnan in (dirty) limelight. Several people started speaking about raping her, calling her names and inviting others to join them in targeting her in their online trolling. News media immediately started flashing the Tweets targeting Kavita Krishnan as well. To some, the real purpose for #selfiewithdaughter became mockery of main issue.

        The question is, how far people can be ‘free’ to express their opinion especially if it is a death threat or rape threat or calling a woman with derogatory names? The courts in our country in many landmark judgements have repeatedly said that political satires, political criticisms etc may not always fall in the restricted speech category as these are essential to keep a healthy democracy alive. In this connection,  I would very much look forward to see the court’s reaction if anyone wants to stress upon the issue that Krishnan herself is also liable to justify her statement of calling a certain political personality a stalker of girls. But I reiterate, the underlying holistic concern in her statement which is related  to the safety of girls and women and also the possible online abuse of the girls due to large scale sharing of the images  in the ongoing #selfiewithdaughter campaigning must not be ignored. Coming to the derogatory comments targeting women, I would not be surprised if some trolls raise their voice stating that if Krishnan can call the PM a ‘stalker of girls’ then why she cannot be targeted with remarks which they feel, may describe her best! Here comes testing of the level of maturity of a healthy civil society. I would rather refer to my previous blog post on Elonis Decision by the US Supreme Court, regarding which scholars and activists like Chemaly and Franks stated that “.......the ruling suggests that the determination of what constitutes threat rests with the speaker and not his audience.”(See  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). Agreed that this case was about a man who did not take name of the estranged wife whom he was actually targeting, and in Krishnan’s case, she had received direct threatening comments,   our courts in India still needs to take their own decisions on rape threats, derogatory comments against women in the social media especially when the issue presents sharing opinion on such issues involving large scale public awareness campaigns slightly tinged by political propaganda. But when seen from the perspective of targeting a particular woman (irrespective of who she is and why did she attract the trolls) with derogatory comments, I must say, I condemn such abuses. May be the protesters against Krishnan’s comments could have considered to limit their thoughts to pointing out why she is wrong in this particular context, or why #selfiewithdaughter should go ahead ignoring her remarks. But people should restrain from subjecting women to ‘online entertainment’ by posting rape threats or calling her derogatory names which lowers the morals of a woman. The same thing continues to happen with many other female activists, journalists and writers who stand up and express their concerns through their own ways. But unfortunately the police and the courts remain almost always silent. Even though our laws (The Indian Penal code, Information Technology Act, Indecent representation of women (prohibition) Act etc.) do speak about prohibitory provisions, none of them actually touches cyber bullying or trolling in the cyber space and in particular, bullying or trolling with death or rape threats or derogatory comments targeting women. S.509 IPC do condemn word, gesture etc harming the modesty of women, but it does not cater the need fully. It is understandable that even if there are laws which broadly or narrowly touches the issue of abuse of women in the cyber space, there needs to a positive network to execute the effect of the law; this includes the willing and trained  police officers, the lawyers and courts who would be compassionate to the cause and  the social media who are willing to pull down direct threat messages once they are alarmed by the victim as well as the criminal justice machinery. Above all, it is the victims who should come up to report and cooperate with criminal justice machinery and face the challenge in proper way by not encouraging others to indulge in counter trolling or bullying.

Let us hope the civil society wakes up with this understanding that if freedom of speech and expression comes with a duty to exercise the same for the benefit of the society and not for causing harm to others, especially 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), #Selfiewithdaughter with a tinge of misogyny” published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

66A on the judgement day

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

When you read about S.66A of the Information technology Act, 2000(inserted through amended Act, 2008), the first thing you may note is its broad scope on censoring freedom of speech.  The provision is named as “punishment for sending offensive messages through communication services etc.” I had been an ardent fan of it since it came into effect in 2008 especially because it promised to prohibit harassment, threatening, defamation (call whatever name you wish to) not only against all netizens, but especially against women. in 2008 India did not see Nirbhaya uproar, which finally gave birth to some meaningful laws including anti-stalking (which included cyber stalking) law in the form of S.354D of the Indian Penal Code. India neither had Protection of women from sexual harassment at work place Act, which was ‘born’ in 2013. This law while grouping certain behaviours as ‘penal’, also included conveying of harassing messages through emails or other communication services as offensive behaviour. Most notable of the present laws which penalises sending offensive messages through communication services is obviously the protection of children from sexual offences Act, 2012. Each time I go through these provisions, I find the shadow of S.66A. Consider the first category of offensive message that has been laid down by 66A: “any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character”, send by ‘any person’ send by computer resource or communication device.  While this has attracted most of the controversies and has created shock waves for those who oppose S.66A, the second categorisation is contrarily more focussed. It categorises “any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, or ill will, persistently makes by making use of such computer resource or a communication device” as offensive communication, liable to be penalised.  I call it ‘more focussed’ because it has mentioned certain human emotions which can be triggered due to sending of particular messages and which the sender sends with particular malicious purposes. But still, this categorisation also attracted controversies due to linguistically twisted presentation of the provision. The third and the last categorisation of offensive messages create even more ‘shock’: it includes “any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages”. This is not the repetition of the earlier paragraphs or categorisation, but it is actually for broadening the scope of 66A to mail or messages  and not just only ‘information’.  People who oppose 66A, take up the defence of its almost open-ended scope which can involve anything and everything as offensive speech.  Since the internet has offered anonimity or no initial policing by the service providers  while generating the message, sects of people have started to use internet as a platform to express their opinion. One of the very first oppositions for 66A came up when  Aseem Trivedi , the political cartoonist was nabbed by the crime branch for his politically satirist cartoons depicting anti-corruption movement in early 2012; soon it followed by more oppositions due to the arrest of Palghar girls Shaheen Dhada  and her friend for their post in Facebook on Mumbai shutdown on the occasion of the death of Balasaheb  Thakre.  Needless to say, such arrests were made by the police on the instigation of political people who took full liberty to (mis)use 66A for curtailing the freedom of speech of common individuals. The latest being the arrest of a school boy on the alleged post targeting another political big shot in Uttarpradesh. Unfortunately 66A always found a slippery way in the hands of police who were ‘instigated’ by some people who wished to take the law in their hands in literal meaning. Added with it, s.66A being a provision which proscribes punishment which may extend to three years, also attracts the issues of cognizance and bailability. S.77B says any offence which is punishable with three years imprisonment or more, is a cognizable offence and bailable. It becomes an obvious fact that if and when any one intends to misuse the law, may use the penal objective of the same with fullest meaning so that the ‘accused’ gets a life time lesson. This is exactly what happens each time 66A is used for curtailing free speech especially in cases of opinions regarding political matters or consumer matters.  I say this, because these arrests were also challenged by Markendeya Katzu, who was a former Supreme Court judge.

But 66A also offers a wonderful safeguard against defamation and other harassment if it is read properly. Consider Article 19(2) of the Indian constitution which lays down reasonable restrictions for freedom of speech.  I see 66A in that light shredding those ambiguous categorisations. it is accepted that 66A lacks clear definitions which is extremely important for any restrictive law. But needless to say, we still do not have any provision to regulate online bullying, trolling or even harassment to women by way of insulting posts. S.509 of the Indian Penal Code may fulfil the gap since it punishes any word, gesture etc to insult the modesty of women. But again, when applying 509, many women may face the problem of ‘what is modesty’ types of questions by the police itself. I have known many victims who have been blamed by the police on this very basis.  Police still depends upon related laws to book the offender and many a times the case becomes extremely complicated due to misunderstanding of the issues. 66A may provide a wonderful solace in such cases.  But still, 66A has been used in many cases of harassment of women in the internet and it proved fruitful as well.

When I write this blog, I understand that within a few minutes or a couple of hours, the Supreme court of India may take its landmark decision on 66A on the grounds thus presented by the defenders and supporters of 66A.  I remember seeing a very meaningful observation in Twitter by none other than Pavan Duggal who mentioned that scrapping of 66A would not serve the purpose. I am an ardent fan of 66A and I would continue to support restrictive laws such as this one(off course when it is read and used in positive lights) if at all Supreme Court  shows lenience towards 66A’s opponents.  I really wish that 66A comes back, but not in its old form. It should be re-born with clear language and purposes.  66A may then mother many other laws which may be beneficial to not only women and children, but also groups of persons including racial minority, gender minority etc.

Wish you good luck 66A!

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), “66A on the judgement day” 24th March, 2015, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

What does social media has to do with Badaun Rape case?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

For past month or two a very disturbing image is flashing in the social media: two girls hanging from a large tree with an audience of some village folks. They were allegedly hanged after they were raped. Many of my Facebook and Twitter acquaintances shared the image in their respective profiles with their own opinions of the issue of rape culture in India. The image got widely circulated. Some shared to show genuine concern, some shared because they thought they should follow the trend of sharing ‘viral images’ to establish their presence in the social media. But I can’t really appreciate such circulation of images which may increase insult to the corpses of the poor girls. While I was writing my article titled “"Online Victimization of Andaman Jarawa Tribal Women: An Analysis of the ‘Human Safari’ YouTube Videos (2012) and Its Effects "  (the online version can be found @ http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/05/05/bjc.azu026.abstract?keytype=ref&ijkey=3XNPIViieFGse4G), I noticed how dangerous it can be to circulate disturbing news  channel images of women who are victimised. As I understand “The peculiar legal understandings that allow floating of apparently offensive images in the cyberspace(McGuire 2007; Levmore and Nussbaum 2012) for the need of research, literature or general concern, have allowed the existence of the Human safari videos in the social media, and they continue to attract researchers’ as well as general individuals’ interest from various perspectives including that of sexual fantasy and racial trolling(Jewkes 2011).(see pgs 684-685 in Debarati Halder & K.Jaishankar, Online Victimization of Andaman Jarawa Tribal Women: An Analysis of the ‘Human Safari’ YouTube Videos (2012) and Its Effects, British Journal of Criminology, 2014 (54) 673-688, doi:10.1093/bjc/azu026). While this had been the major reason that the Jarawa women may continue to be victimised for some more years in the internet, this understanding may nonetheless be applied to the case of Badaun rape victims as well.

  In this case of raped and murdered girls, as far as my understanding goes, the images were released in the news channels and the civil society members started sharing the same. We all know how easy it is to spread the flame in the social media by sharing images. However, such public or even private  sharing may not always be good.  I do not disagree with the view that the more such incidences are shared, the more civil society members can be involved for a mass revolution against violence against women. The Delhi Rape case in December 2012 and the consequences which resulted in creation of new set of laws for women in India can be best example. But it also needs to be understood that our Criminal Procedure Code and the Indian Penal Code strictly prohibits distributing images of victims, especially women and child victims. This not only may jeopardise the prosecution, but also may add more insult to the dead. I agree that some images show blurred faces; but the original image(which had been circulated by many in the social media) with clear picture is not only visually disturbing, it actually gives an implied message as how women are still subdued by large scale discrimination. One never knows what sorts of sadistic trolls may enlarge the scope of victimisation of the dead in this case. Those who are still sharing these images may note that  the parents of the victim girls can approach the court to stop such post death humiliation of their daughters in the  digital media.  

Please consider: to stop violence against women first stop sharing disturbing images of the victims  which may have made them (the victims) feel ashamed of their womanhood. Use social media  to build up a strong resistance against rape culture by sharing your views and making people aware of the issue.............. but not by disgracing the victim or by overriding the law.

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. (2014), “What does social media has to do with Badaun Rape case?

”, 29^th June,2014, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Defaming women in the Indian cyber space; does anybody bother about penal laws?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN

When I was a new internet user, I loved to experiment with my virtual avatar by befriending one and all. I never used to think this may bring unwanted “danger” or “perpetual nuisance”. At first, it was hotmail where I created an account and way back in 2004/5 , my email was the only identity for me in the cyber space. There were no social networking and no online chatting options available to me other than the yahoo messenger which I used to talk to my sister who stays over seas. Well, I had very limited knowledge about networking then. But slowly internet addicted me. I became quite a darling to internet predators who invaded my yahoo id…..I started getting funny mail messages and I sometimes ignored them, sometimes answered very foolishly. But, “they” never crossed their limits. In a way, probably these “senders” understood that I am not a good dish either for them or for the purpose of serving to others as I never shared any of my pictures or informations online and I was never interested in “intimate chattings”. But never mind, I won’t lie….. Sometimes, I loved those pranky messages. In no time, I was introduced to social networking and I used to hit the sites at least twice a day. I found a new world altogether. This time also, I never minded to choose friends randomly whoever peeped in. I felt quite comfortable to share my informations this time, as I believed, most of them out there are telling the truth. But yes, by the third month, I understood why it is called the “vicious net”. I saw quite a lot of groups or communities making fun of women…………..ordinary individuals as well as celeb women. I was not surprised when I saw some filthy comments in my own scrap book too. I knew it was time for me to close doors to unknown visitors. I did exactly that. But I still I cant accept when I see people making fun of women in the internet. Sadly, Indian women are humiliated by their counterparts not only in the real world, but in the “unreal world” too. It has become quite a fashion to use the computer keyboard to undress a woman and tell a tale about her to others. Remember “pen is mightier than sword” theory? Some “nuts” execute the theory in a digital fashion in most unwanted way.
But hey, come’ on. We have a strict law against it. The Indian Information Technology Act 2008 voices the concern .Remember, if some one wants to defame the woman online with false “stories” (enough to make the victim “annoyed” and the recipient “confused”) and sends it to a huge audience for cherishing the “gossip”, Section 66A will promptly sentence him/her for imprisonment which may extend to two to three years; If the perpetrator prefers to put on filthy “lascivious” words and pictures of his victim/s by doctoring her/their picture, then section 67 awaits for you with imprisonment sentences which may lock you in for two to three years; if the perpetrator wants to make the victim “ashamed”, “disgusted” or “traumatized” by publishing compromising pictures where he claims to accompany his victim, no matter what, be prepared to be “in” for minimum five years under section 67 A. Perpetrator, you may not be allowed to move freely because if section 67A tames you, there may not be any bail. And, do not forget the monetary fines along with imprisoning sentences. Your bank balance may become NIL . Ohhhh..wait.. Indian Penal code will play a foremost role to book the perpetrator under several strong sentences too; sections 500,501 and 509 will be the foremost of them when the question involves defamation and ruining the modesty of the woman. Section 292 A also awaits to be “employed” in, if the perpetrator plans to circulate doctored pictures, pictures of intimate moments or ‘please keep secret’ stuff to blackmail his victim.

So, next time if you want to hurt a woman in the most chosen mischievous fashion, remember, it is no more a “child’s play”.

FOR SALE : A WOMAN OF YOUR CHOICE

http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/

"Forced prostitution" ....... something no woman wants to do but circumstances make her to do  , has become a dreadful reality in today's digital era. A woman's sexuality can be used ( readers please read it as "misuse") in various ways for gain . In this internet era the easiest way to business with women is to upload the real life informations about the woman in target and "exhibit her " for availability for dating, dirty talks and even have her for a night or two. The women are mostly handpicked by men or even women who feel they have been badly hurt by their "targets" and this is the best way to show them that “I can also ruin your life in a better way ". The "target" all of a sudden gets call either in her mobile phone or home phone asking for her "services”. Some even drop at her door step to "have a deal on first come first serve basis". Well, the woman is taken by surprise, her family feels disgusted, friends line up to console her but none really know exactly how the poor woman turned into a virtual "most wanted sexy babe". But a little research on the history of the case may reveal this was but inevitable ............ perhaps her mobile number was displayed in her social networking site or she may have generously distributed her personal number among one and all; similarly, it wont be surprising if her picture is captured from her chosen sites, or her home address was displayed in the internet; the issue becomes more grave if the harasser knows the victim personally offline. The effect could be instant stigma to the woman in question. Even though she may not have any cyber inclination other than just seeing her emails, she may be forced to have a look at these ugly sites against her wishes. But it will be surprising to note that it is not the pornographic or adult dating sites only which are used to victimize the woman ; even good social networking sits are also used to “display” her .Fake profiles may be created about her and enormous “advertisements” about her may do the needful.

Indian cyber audience has witnessed nasty things like this not so long ago and it is increasing in number. While in the west, many of such incidences are immediately reported, Indian mindset makes the woman in question feel traumatized, guilty and ashamed of her self. The situation may need her to cancel her phone number or even change her residential address or constant police protection. But in most cases, these options look tedious and the victim prefers to be as she is …………. silently bearing the brunt, waiting patiently to let the “craze” die down automatically. But one must understand that the poor victim can not be dragged deeper in side the scandalous pool due to mischievous misuse of the cyber space by irresponsible individuals. Some simple precautions like not displaying personal numbers or addresses in the public sites etc   may go a long way to save women from these perfidious incidents. But ACCIDENTS DO HAPPEN. The best way to prevent such unwanted incidences could be to prevent one’s too much self exposition for “fun” in the internet and at the same time putting a STOP to the usage of internet for taking revenges. Remember, the law never leaves individual revenge takers, no matter whether he does it in the traditional offline way of hurting the victim in person or by using the electronic and digital medium to damage the victim’s reputation and thereafter attacking her in person.