Women, be careful when you join 'groups' in Facebook

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Couple of day’s back I came through a research which showed that women are more attracted to social networking through popular social media like the Facebook or Twitter than men (See http://in.lifestyle.yahoo.com/women-more-attracted-facebook-twitter-men-study-105041750.html). Being a woman myself, I cannot wholeheartedly agree with this research as I have seen many men *also* have taken likings for social networking too. But this research made it once again crystal clear: women are vulnerable in the net. In this era of social media, women do not click in the Facebook or Twitter just as a leisure activity only. I see these Medias as mines of informations; and I am sure many women like me visit these ‘mines’ for gathering useful informations, which are essential for home maintenance, baby care to safe e-banking, online shopping, part time or full time jobs from home etc. Where do we find these mines? Anywhere and everywhere if you have your 6^th sense ready for gaining the informations. I look specifically for the ‘groups’ and ‘trending topics’ for gathering informations, which in very sophisticated term, can also be called as ‘data mining’.

          But women of my genre, beware!

All is not safe when you switch on your Facebook account with your personal informations and albums open to your friends. In a ‘group,’ in the Facebook, there are numbers of privacy issues which may bother members, especially women members; let me detail them here:

1.     If one member tags you or your photo, your well protected informations, status updates and even the entire album can be pulled out from your profile. Do not feel secured if you have made your informations available for your friends and not for the public. You may never know, but your friend’s friends can also view your ‘secrets’ meant only for your friends.

2.    A group expands by snow balling its members through existing members. So if any one of the members mistakenly adds any unwanted individual, the security of the other members may be jeopardized.

3.    You may get introduced to many likeminded members in a group, who may be interested in knowing you more closely. But be careful. Once an individual sends a friend’s request, he/she may be able to see the status updates and the new addings to the album if they are not ‘protected’; this is possible even when the ‘friend’s request’ is in the ‘pending’ status. Hence if you do not wish to share anything with him/her, immediately close your door to him/her.

4.    Remember if this is not a closed group, your contributions to the group may be visible in  the world wide web if someone searches for your name.

These are but some of my own findings from my own experiences in the Facebook. But women, don’t withdraw yourself. There are more ‘safety pins’ available for protecting the loop holes.

Ø Facebook offers few types of friend’s category, namely; acquaintances, friends and close friends. It falls upon you to categorize your ‘friends’ for a better networking.

Ø When it is an open group, be careful to choose your words for contribution.

Ø Be watchful; if you are tagged without your permission, ‘de-tag’ yourself .

Ø Take immediate decision regarding friend’s requests. Pending requests may add more privacy risks.

Ø If you are a member in a group which allows snow balling, be sure to add known and reliable friends. This is will make you a safety valve in your own group.

At the end, let your friends be aware of the positive side of social networking. Being a social species,  no human beings are fallible. But remember, we are humans and a little bit of awareness would definitely make our lives in the well webbed world wonderful.

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), “Women, be careful when you join groups in Facebook”, 6^th September,2012, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

A shocking reminder of victimisation of women

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Since long women are used as a ‘cursor’ of chastity. A devoted wife is supposed to be a best woman, a devoted mother may not make a best wife, a devoted professional may not make a good wife, nor a good mother; the list goes on. Depending upon such analytical subjections, a woman can be a ‘good’ woman ( wanted by one and all in marriage markets and can make a good example for other women in the society), a smart woman (may not be wanted by one and all and may not prove to be a good example for other families who would like their daughters to be so called ‘good women’), and a bad woman ( wanted by none as the male dominated society may portray her as a woman who  can satisfy only her own demands, be it physical or emotional). Such ‘bad women’ make good "items" to be displayed. In the pre internet era, the gossip columns of news papers and popular magazines used to display them. In the internet era, it is again the gossip columns but in the web magazines where they are displayed. Who fall in the category of bad women? Any one right from a prostitute, who work to feed herself and her children,  to a stubborn female government official, who may stand for her as well as other women’s rights at any cost,  to a female academician who may fight against gender discrimination, to even an authoritative mother who may lay strict rules at home for welfare of her children irrespective of their sexes  and offcouse a female lover who finds her heart’s happiness going against her social customs and commands which may have been made to regulate women more than men, can fall in the bad woman category depending upon the social value system of her country and region. In the internet era these women, who fight for their own rights and happiness and yet tagged as bad women find unique places through unique mediums. One such example is the recently executed Afghan woman whose public execution pictures  are being circulated in the internet today (seehttp://in.news.yahoo.com/photos/public-execution-of-woman-condemned-in-afghanistan-slideshow/) . A regular reader of  Yahoo news services, at first I was taken aback when I found the news clipping titled “Afghan woman executed in public” in the Yahoo India news link today. Anyone would feel extremely disturbed. I nurse a curious woman in me who loves to see and read about  silver screen celebs, women entrepreneurs and achievers. This particular image of a man targeting his gun towards the head of a woman (she is not facing the camera....fortunately not), all wrapped up in a colour less cloth patiently waiting for her death, made me think that it is a trailer picture of Bollywood diva Madhuri Dixit’s  forthcoming film (well the scroll showed a picture of Madhuri with her two sons  and an adoring husband in the backdrop of  TajMahal just before this horrible real life killing picture.) My brain made no mistakes in assuming the next picture in the scroll as a continuation of Madhuri’s story, as in the previous picture Madhuri was captured covering her head and face with a scarf for paparazzi reasons. But my poor brain slowly registered the fact; it was not a cinema clipping, it was real; a real picture of killing a woman in the most inhuman way because she was charged with adultery. The slides opened one by one and I got to see this woman’s execution slowly unfolding in the remaining six slides: many men watching the killing of a woman.
            These pictures could earn best journalistic pictures award in near future, may be this news reporter would earn accolade for reporting this inhuman act of  some fanatic humans. But it is now widely available in the internet. Men, women and especially children (matured as well as younger teens who surf the net for so many purposes) who may come across this clipping anywhere in the internet may lose a peaceful night’s sleep. What disturbs me is, there is no prior warning for ‘viewer’s choice’ before this clipping opens or the link pops up. This opens up wide range of dangers for humane internet savvy humans; imagine the psychological trauma of a matured teenager who may never have heard or seen such nasty executions, older viewers or even pregnant women who may have opened this slide show without properly understanding what it is about. It is indeed true that when a report is read without any images attached with it, the impact may give different results than when still pictures such as these are seen. The Yahoo would play a safe game as they won’t be liable unless someone asks them to remove it from their list; the link may find its place for a long time as this may not fall under ‘illegal speech and expression’ category in the internet if  advocates for free speech establish the fact that it doesn’t cross the red line. But to me it is revisiting victimisation of women in yet another new form. The more this clipping bearing  execution pictures float in the internet, the more some fanatics would get *strength* to terrorise innocent women with dire consequences.People, how long you will enjoy this cruel victimisation of women even in the internet age?

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), “A shocking reminder of victimisation of women ”, 9^th July,2012, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

The problem of Online grooming of children

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER
This is me reporting from Sweden criminology conference at Stockholm. Since yesterday when the conference opened, I am attending all the sessions on victimisation in the cyber space and restorative justices. Well, no doubt, I am getting extremely strong and confident for my own presentation scheduled for tomorrow morning. There is a flow of informations from trans border jurisdictions, especially Europe and it is definitely scary.....cyber crime against female species of human beings is growing... Off course I have not come across any presentation stil now which spoke about adult victims ( I will be the first to start it tomorrow and I am looking forward to hear something regarding hacking etc afterwards), but quite a number of researchers did find similar results...online grooming of young girls are on the rise.in fact the situation is no different from India...... We name it pedophilia and related activities in India, they call it grooming. Well, we still feel reluctant to name this activity as grooming. Probably we in India take the word grooming in a very positive note. But the online groomers have the same methodology as is the case in Europe. I felt extremely uncomfortable to hear the specific ways and to see the chat messages that the members from the police in Sweden showed. I felt awkward because I was sitting along with a good number of men and women who were watching the presentation with me and I am used to see such comments or posts only in private while I am working as a cyber victim counsellor or writing something on the burning issues.Slowly the natural realisation settled in.. We are all birds of the same flock, all of us are working towards helping the victims and there is nothing to feel awkward to see or talk about some thing which we in India generally don't do even in gatherings like this. In fact I have even dropped the plan of showing a naughty text message in symbols....I have no "shame" feeling about sharing some of my personal experiences now. 
Why online grooming is not getting this very approach in India still now? The answer is crystal clear now. We refuse to believe that our children can actually fall in such traps. Last year in India while I was participating in a seminar as a keynote speaker, a participant, who also belongs to legal fraternity, openly challenged me on my observation that girls in India are also "groomed" and they are also asked by their potential groomers to show their private parts through web cams or post the pictures. He refused to accept the hard truth that I have actually dealt with minor victims of such sorts of victimisations. He falls in the majority section. No one, not even the victim's parents can believe that their child can fall in this very section. But I feel sad  to note that  in India online grooming is probably increasing. You ask me evidence for it and I would show the numerous police websites where they are now showing up caution messages for children. A good sign indeed. But the question remains about acceptance of such victims and victimisation in our society. The presenter in the conference himself was a police officer and he informed me that their society has successfully cut off the feeling of shame from the concept of victimisation. Perhaps he is true; he showed so many messages from the matured children which proved his words. We in India could not do this. It is the time for us to believe in the ancient saying "shame, hatred and fear... the more you grow them, the more they settle in you". The more victims would come up, the lesser we can expect the rate of victimisation,for it may finally teach the offender that they are being noted and they are not welcome.

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), "The problem of Online grooming of children ”, 12th June,2012, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/