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Gender and Internet : Web magazine for Cyber law for women News update for August 1-August 15,2020

Happy Independence Day, 2020 (Picture courtesy : Internet )

Egypt prosecutes women influences of TikTok for “violating family values” under “draconian” laws addressing cyber crimes

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/08/egypt-survivors-of-sexual-violence-and-online-abuse-among-prosecuted-women-tiktok-influencers/

Police arrests fraudsters in India including two women in a case of online sex racket. Customers were shown photographs of women to allure them to pay money.

https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/crime-beat/online-sex-racket-busted-in-thrissur-2-women-among-10-arrested-1.4972414

Stakeholders file Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India to take action against social media accounts involved in indecent and illicit trading, revenge porn etc.

https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/pil-supreme-court-act-against-social-media-accounts-online-trade-of-illicit-content-revenge-porn

Appeals court in UK rules that using of automated facial recognition technology by police violates privacy related laws.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/08/police-use-of-facial-recognition-violates-human-rights-uk-court-rules/?fbclid=IwAR26Erw5vPf3Sbe6_jSt7K94vCZXTd-TrXlVS5szbVyfBPT5FbsFzXJNLjg

Gender and Internet : Web magazine for Cyber law for women News update for July 7th -July 25th, 2020

Picture courtesy: Internet

Austria plans to bring tougher laws to regulate online platforms sharing user generated contents : It is hoped that hate speech may be curbed

https://www.euractiv.com/section/data-protection/news/austrias-law-against-online-hate-speech-question-marks-in-the-home-stretch/?fbclid=IwAR0w4DYWM4Dw1DOKaGzen5M-GiMPgQjb0hzw4lTFphXCYxZH_Rc_m_p5aCQ

Video showcasing thrashing of woman in public in India becomes viral. some claim this to be a case of caste violence , some claimed this to be a case of domestic violence. But neither the woman gets any respite, nor the video is pulled down.

https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/video-of-up-woman-thrashed-by-husband-viral-with-false-caste-angle

Father beats 30 year old daughter, who had been a victim of domestic violence by her husband, to death as a way of honor killing. Video becomes viral on internet. Jordan police does not take action to prohibit viral circulation of the video.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/video-father-beating-daughter-death-called-honor-killing/story?id=71903071

Corona pandemic encourages men to go for online intimate chatting with strangers and sextortion cases rise: perpetrators posing as girls and women steal private data and continues sextortion.

https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/now-epidemic-of-sextortion-rattles-delhi-1702691-2020-07-21

France decides to introduce age verification system to prevent and protect children from being exposed to porn sites.

https://www.politico.eu/article/france-to-introduce-controversial-age-verification-system-for-adult-pornography-websites/?fbclid=IwAR1pQCct6YMrygvKaohsLAycoHqXa8mgFpVTBJrHp0ygi4YvhtUEs4snKsU

Gender and Internet : Web magazine for Cyber law for women News update for June 1- June 30, 2020

Happy World Social Media Day from Gender & Internet : Web magazine for cyber law for women

Courtesy: Google

India bans 59 Chinese websites including TikTok , SheIn etc: government cites reasons of national security and privacy issues.

https://www.medianama.com/2020/06/223-tiktok-banned-india-59-chinese-apps/

Lacunae in Korean Communications Standards Commission, which prohibits “explicitly showing or describing specific sexual parts of the body such as male/female genitals, pubic hair or anus” allows more creation and circulation of porn contents including nude body parts of women over live-streams.

https://technology.inquirer.net/101544/freewheeling-sexual-content-the-dark-side-of-s-koreas-internet-broadcasting

Egyptian belly dancer arrested over charge of debauchery. offensive contents were found from the dancer’s TikTok profile which she alleged as unauthorisedly shared and stolen from her phone. Misdemeanors Economic Court stated that the accused had violated family principles and values in Egypt for committing immorality. Dancer decides to file an appeal.

https://www.deccanherald.com/international/world-trending/egypt-court-jails-belly-dancer-for-debauchery-in-social-media-crackdown-854656.html

Jordan police arrests man and his videographer friend who made video and shared it over social media inciting people to rape women who wear revealing clothes.

https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/jordan-two-men-arrested-for-inciting-others-to-rape-women-wearing-revealing-clothes-1.72005981

6 people in Massachusetts who had been former employees of EBay Inc company, have been charged with conspiring to commit cyber stalking and tamper with witnesses as they started threatening a couple, who runs a newsletter on e-commerce by sending anonymous emails, delivering stuffs like live cockroaches, bloody masks etc

https://o.canada.com/pmn/business-pmn/six-former-ebay-employees-charged-with-cyberstalking-massachusetts-couple/wcm/438f59af-0125-4ac8-8cf0-b1f98082ef26

Hyderabad man poses as friend to wife for sextortion and blackmailing in Andhra Pradesh, India, gets arrested on complaint from wife.

https://english.sakshi.com/news/telangana/hyderabad-man-arrested-extorting-rs-1-crore-wife-posing-friend-120389

Pakistan man who worked in a private clinic got arrested for secretly video taped child birthing and other related medical procedures and threatening the clinic owner to share the videos online when the owner terminated his services.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2246467/clinic-worker-held-videotaping-patients

Thailand unemployed dance teacher arrested by police for possessing offensive images of children in his device.

https://www.chiangraitimes.com/thailand-national-news/teacher-arrested-for-possessing-offensive-images-of-children/

Gender and Internet : Web magazine for Cyber law for women News update for May 1-May 31st, 2020

Happy Global day of parents Happy Cyber parenting day

Its not only teen girls, adult women also find their private photos and information accessible by public during lock down.

https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/be-it-18-23-or-40-some-men-don-t-grow-out-of-boys-locker-rooms_in_5eb3d316c5b646b73d282acc

Nepali women face sexual objectification and harassment on Reddit: victims’ private Instagram photos are being shared non consensually to harass

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2020/05/07/for-nepali-women-rampant-objectification-and-sexualisation-on-the-internet

Lock down sees rise in the circulation of more “Khemer Porn” on Private Telegram groups in Cambodia, most of which are either non consensual porn or Rape videos.

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/721177/telegrams-protection-opens-gate-to-flood-of-porn/

Indian TikTok star gets multiple charges from different stakeholders for promoting acid attacks on girls on the issue of jilted love affairs on TikTok

https://www.indialegallive.com/top-news-of-the-day/news/multiple-complaints-filed-against-tiktok-siddiqui-for-video-showing-jilted-lovers-acid-attack-99763

Philippino mother arrested for live streaming sexual abuse of her minor children : if proved guilty, she may face life imprisonment too.

https://www.rappler.com/nation/262424-mother-arrested-online-sexual-exploitation-children-caloocan

13 women including 12 girls are rescued from cyber sex den in Bhutan: victims were forced to act in shows which would be video graphed as per the customized demands of the porn customers.

https://philippineslifestyle.com/baby-12-others-rescued-from-cybersex-den-in-butuan/

Covid-19 lock- down and cyber victimization of women by Dr.Debarati Halder

Image courtesy: Internet

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 lock-down 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, batch-mates 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 Whats App 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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Lockdown period is a testing time for the entire human civilisation. But if we do not restrict unethical and illegal usage of information technology, the impact of online harassment may be more traumatising than the Covid-19 experience.

Stay safe, stay strong and do not misuse the Information and digital communication technology.

Please note : This writeup was first published in https://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/2020/05/cyber-crimes-targeting-women-during.html. Please 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 https://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/2020/05/cyber-crimes-targeting-women-during.html

[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

Gender and Internet : Web magazine for Cyber law for women News update for February 17-March 16, 2020

Case against man in Scotland who had alleged to have sent naked videos of himself and contents showcasing sexual acts performed by himself to woman, gets deserted, prosecution comes to an end without the facts being determined and he is allowed to walk free because witnesses for the prosecution failed to depose.

https://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/news/crime/case-deserted-against-hawick-51-year-old-accused-sending-woman-videos-himself-performing-sex-act-1887132

Bangalore court rejects bail petition of Nigerian man who had duped 44 women he met on marriage portal

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/bengaluru-nigerian-accused-of-cheating-44-women-denied-bail/articleshow/74296918.cms

Man joins Whatsapp group in India, post data mining, gets number of target female victim and allegedly continues to send sexually harassing contents in Hyderabad, India and gets arrested.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2020/feb/26/tamil-nadu-man-harasses-woman-in-hyderabad-held-2108542.html

US woman ends relationship with a Dubai based Egyptian, sends strong mail against the later’s online abuses including sending her pornographic images of himself, sexually explicit images and texts via messages : resultant, the woman is charged with slander as per the UAE laws and arrested.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/melissa-mcburnie-arrest-uae-strong-language-explicit-messages-us-national-a9367381.html?fbclid=IwAR3d5kgmNJWK0yGKVaL08O96JuO_RCM_xSkieZZxNgGnvFIz-E5tnFE9y9E

Pornhub, world’s biggest porn site fails several victims of rape, revenge porn and nonconsensual porn in its practice of due diligence. Activists and stakeholders point out that thousands of rape, sexual assault videos are consumed over this platform.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/09/worlds-biggest-porn-site-under-fire-over-videos-pornhub?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR0llaaHI65m5K9zECr3XYAmRD_ZHzUFyM1YY8WOT6-gAs9JcFWwPlYxFyI

Dating apps are used by men to rob, sexually assault women in real life in the US

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/maryland/masked-men-posing-as-women-on-dating-apps-to-assault-victims/65-32860767-6a58-4220-ad84-bbe8d42d934b

3 women get prison sentences and order for hefty payment for live streaming of child abuse in lieu of money from regional trial court in Lapu Lapu in Philippines.

https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/289203/3-mothers-from-lapu-lapu-city-plead-guilty-to-online-trafficking-charges

Gender and Internet : Web magazine for Cyber law for women News update for February 10-February 16, 2020

picture curtsy : Internet

Women victims of sextortion, fake profiles, non consensual porn in Nepal suffer silently as law and the police fail to nab offenders sitting in different jurisdictions.

https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/crossborder-cybercrime-and-punishment/

2020 valentines week saw romance scammers victimizing vulnerable older single women, war widows and heart broken widowers in Australia

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8001801/Love-scammers-swindle-MILLIONS-vulnerable-women-pretending-soldiers-widowers.html

Mexican woman violated and virtually abused even aftr hear death when news media portals share images and videos of her unskinned mutilated body over digital platform. Agitated stakeholders blame the ill drafted laws which failed to prevent circulation of objectionable of video of women by web portals.

https://www.headlinesoftoday.com/news/world-news/mexico-in-outrage-as-picture-of-mutilated-body-of-a-murdered-woman-published.html

Man and his female acquaintance arrested for blackmailing businessman in Pakistan for his objectionable private videos that were alleged to have been deceitfully captured by two women from the same gang.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1534111/man-woman-arrested-for-blackmail

Gender and Internet : Web magazine for Cyber law for women News update for January 27th-February 9, 2020

In a first, Madras High Court refuses to quash a case against Airtel as a service provider and directs the trial court to conduct trial for finding out liability of the service provider for continuous sending of unwanted messages of sexual nature to an Airtel subscriber.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/obscene-messages-airtel-to-face-trial-as-hc-refuses-to-quash-case/articleshow/73944935.cms

Basildon Crown Court, UK awards 32 months jail sentence to man who hacked into iCloud and leaked private images of women and girls online. The prison sentence is awarded in relation to 12 computer misuse offences, nine counts of voyeurism and five counts of taking indecent images of children.

https://digit.fyi/suffolk-man-jailed-for-hacking-icloud-and-sharing-indecent-images-online/

Saudi divorced woman arrested for ‘indecent’ posts on social media which includes encouraging women to leave their husband when certain demands are not fulfilled, hosting matchmaking, showcasing women dancing and smoking in public. The activities have been considered as criminal activities as per Saudi laws.

https://stepfeed.com/saudi-woman-arrested-for-posting-illicit-content-on-snapchat-8974

Two men from a reputed family in West Bengal target 182 women by way of stalking, hacking, voyeurism etc. Police arrests the offenders under several provisions of Indian Penal Code, Information Technology Act

https://news.abplive.com/tv-show/sansani/kolkata-men-arrested-for-blackmailing-182-women-sansani-1155439

Woman CEO receives constant vulgar messages from fake email ids. Accused arrested for cyber stalking in India

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/080220/saree-designer-cyberstalks-woman-ceo-arrested.html

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