DIGITAL OPPRESSION AGAINST WOMEN
Updated: Jul 24, 2020
Author- T.Subbalakshmi
In today's digital era, information and communication technology is benefiting millions of people across the globe. Internet has become part and partial of our daily lives. According to January 2020, 4.54 billion people are using the internet across the world. On the Internet, we can access the dark web which can lead to internet crimes. People can hide behind the group of anonymity to commit crimes and other negative activities without revealing their identities. In India, 555 cybercrime cases related to women were reported in 2017 according to a report by NCRB.
Types of Cybercrime against Women and Children :
E-mail Spoofing
One of the cyber-crimes which targets women (emailing vulgar photographs of themselves to women, praising their beauty, and asking them for a date)[1]. Men’s most popular approach is to send obscene photographs off themselves to women, praise their beauty, and ask for a date or inquire about how much they’re willing to pay for the facility. In addition to that, they will send out explicit messages via e-mail, SMS and chat photos often editing the victim’s face onto another, usually nude body
Morphing:-
Morphing involves transiting seamless shy from one image to another without any corrections using internet morphing software. Usually, girls are affected by this form of morphing by the people who download pictures of them from different social media accounts through fake or real profiles and then morphing them. These morphed pictures may be used to blackmail the girl or girl’s family by threatening them to publish their morphed images. Many youngsters are uploading images on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media websites. The perpetrators are taking advantage of these to threaten the women and are earning money through morphing.
Many cases are registered recently there was a case which was registered on May 18, 2020, 33 years old cloth merchant from the extension for allegedly posting morphed photographs of women who work with a national political party. IT cell on social media .the police said that man was attending to malign the woman’s image probably because of her political connections
Cyber –Pornography:-
Cyber-Pornography has grown into a global issue. Cyber Pornography is the act of using cyberspace to create, view, upload, import and publish porno or obscene materials especially materials portraying children engaging in sexual activities. Cyber pornographic is an illegal activity through which many children and youngsters can access pornographic contexts on the dark web. This was a Case in Dehradun where a 12 years old boy raped a 16-year-old girl after watching porn. Porn plays a major role in today’s problem with sexual harassment cases.
Cyber-Stalking:-
Cyberstalking is a crime where the attackers harass a victim through electronic means of abuse or cyber-crime communication such as e-mail or instant messaging. Cyberstalking can include many things including threats solicitation of sex, false accusations for defamation, slander, libel.
Cyber –Defamation:-
Cyber tort including libel and defamation is another crime against women on the internet [2].Defamation takes place with the help of the internet. There is a case where A 25-year-old girl Ms Soman (name has changed) received obscene telephone calls from an unknown person. After a short period of time, she found out that there is a fake profile under her name on Facebook describing her as a “call girl”. She found her email was hacked by someone who got access to her personal information such as her photograph and telephone number. Obscene contents containing e-mails are receiving from her friends.
Provisions of the IT Act 2000 relating to Cybercrimes in India:
Section 65 chapter 11 of the IT Act deals with offences such as Tampering with computer source documents
Section 66: Hacking with the computer system
Section 67: publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form
Section 70: Access a protected system
Conclusion:-
In India, Cyber-crimes mostly target women and children. Still, we don't have any consolidated and focused laws. Victims are not ready to complain about offenders regarding cyber abuse and cyber-crimes. Cyber crime lies in the form of “Modus Operandi” which became the motive for cyber criminals so that they can escape after they commit the crime. The basic precautionary for controlling these well-established crimes could be a well-balanced monitoring system for all websites. Alteration of IT Act 2000 that specify crime against women is much required. Whereas the common people can be more careful about their privacy on the social media, by not sharing any personal information to strangers, by having a proper understanding of what to share and what not to and above all generalization of content on the basis of age limit is much important.
The cyber crimes mentioned above are
only one side of the coin. There are many other serious and heinous crimes that homes the Internet like Cyber terrorism, smuggling, malware, password attacks, etc, in the end,the command and control to stop these lies with us, common people .if we don't entertain them this beautiful world would be preserved for a greater good.
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