– By Siddhi Anand Lodha
The Internet has become the second life of every person. This is possible because of open access to the Internet and a remarkably cheap cost to enter cyberspace. The sheer scale and reach of the Internet has made it a powerful weapon. It has been a great equalizer that guarantees freedom of speech irrespective of class, creed, or geography. Actors- even individual actors have the power to influence this cyberspace due to its reach and magnitude. The best example is social media. Social media platforms are spaces where there is a garb of free speech. Along with numerous benefits of the Internet, it can be put to bad use as well.
Innovations and freedom cannot thrive in a chaotic environment with rampant crime and a lack of rules, norms, and ethics. This makes Cyberspace prone to cybercrimes such as money laundering, sexual exploitation, illegal access to electronic information, the creation of harmful computer viruses, and the like. The increased use of cyberspace has also given way to more innovative and sophisticated cybercrimes. India has seen a rise in cybercrimes against women between 2018 to 2020 according to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB). The cases lodged for sexually explicit content increased 110% from 6,308 to 3,076. Harassing women on social media on the grounds of religion has lately been a trend in cybercrime. This blog concerns cyber crimes against women.
STORY OF BULLI BAI
During this New Year-2022, some prominent Muslim women in India faced threat, trauma, and indignity as they were been targeted by an app named ‘Bulli Bai’. The app was seen doing the inhuman act of auctioning Muslim women as maids and using their photos from their social media accounts without their permission. Their photos were titled with the phrase “The Bulli Bai of the day is…”. Such an act was not the first instance of the occurrence. In 2021, an app named Sulli Deals had hosed doctored photographs of hundreds of Muslim Women for auction. These women were mostly the ones who were politically vocal and against all forms of patriarchy. Both these apps cherry-picked these women and targeted them in front of the world audience.
These apps were an assertion of power and an attempt to humiliate these women emotionally and morally. They are an example of how technology is being used with speedy ease and little expense to put women at risk of online abuse, theft of privacy, or sexual exploitation. Overall, women have a risk online due to incidents of trolling, doxing with personal details, surveillance cameras, location tracking or pornographic videos, and the use of doctored images.
PAST AND EXISTING LAWS ON HATE SPEECH FOR ONLINE CONTENT
The creation of the Bulli Bai and Sulli Deals app is an example of Digital hate which comes under Hate Speech. In India, hate speech is not profusely restricted. It remains undefined with appropriate IT Act provisions or regulatory mechanisms for online content. These absent mechanisms are misused by some people and used to incite anger or divide communities without being threatened by any liability.
Previously, Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 made it a punishable offense for any person to send ‘grossly offensive’ and ‘menacing’ information using a computer resource or communication device. This law seems good at the face level. However, this Section empowered the police to make arrests over the subjective discretion of what ‘offensive’ and ‘menacing’ meant for causing annoyance or inconvenience. The Section was vague. The Act was made to prevent the misuse of Information Technology. However, due to the vagueness, the law became a potential tool to gag legitimate free speech online and to curtail freedom of speech and expression online. Therefore, Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Shreya Singhal vs Union of India case of 2015 which found it ‘arbitrary, excessively and disproportionately’ invading the right to free speech.
Hence, today there is no IT Act that aims to curtail either online or offline ‘Hate Speech’. Two sections can be employed to arrest the accused of the Bulli Bai app case. Section 153A of the IPC is about promoting enmity between different groups (based on religion here) through words, signs, or otherwise a punishable offense. Another Act is Section 295A which says that deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs is a punishable offense. These two Sections can be used in such cases as that on Bulli Bai but they are inadequate to deal with the barrage of online hate content. Therefore, we can say that to address the proliferation of hate speech on social media, criminal law should not be the first resort, but the last. The promotion of non-regulatory tools such as counter speech, fast-checking, and digital education is imperative.
IMPROVING INDIAN LAW
If we think of improving the Indian law to curb these new forms of hate crime, we are just trying to cut off the branches from a tree. This is not the permanent solution since the leaves would crop up again in some of the other forms of hate crime. However, this solution is still important because it is the fastest solution.
Lack of timely action by social media and policy lethargy to act against those who send threatening messages to women has set an ecosystem of hate in these social media apps. These hate campaigns are downplayed saying that they are ‘stray incidents’, ‘fringe elements’ or ‘just online’ and how it ‘does not matter.’ This is what led to the normalization of hate and the birth of Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai. One prominent question is why wasn’t there any action over the FIRs of the Sulli Deals app case? Why wasn’t it considered serious? This is where such crimes get a chance to breed. Arresting these app developers will mean a lesson for other digital hate criminals.
Indian law has a vital mechanism in place to combat cybercrime, but with the increasing innovations in digital life, the laws are falling short of curbing these online hate crimes. The prosecution rates for cyber offenses have remained low in India despite the enactment of IT rules and the IT act. One could say this is because of the lack of resources of law enforcement, lack of manpower, and the lack of technical expertise. The financial resources allocated for fighting cybercrimes have also been low.
Despite written complaints, FIRs, and Women’s Commissions reaching the police, no action can be expected from the government before the Parliamentarians take up some action. There can be amendments in the existing laws or the enactment of new laws relating to Cyberhate crimes. Along with this, the power imbalances must be addressed with awareness programs and complaint and protection mechanisms accompanied by strong punishments which deter such behavior in the future. As for the police, we need better infrastructure, more special cyber cells and police stations, regular training, and collaboration with cyber experts continuously. Measures can be taken to strengthen the capacity of forensic laboratories which can help for evidence collection of cyberbullying, threatening, morphing, and profiling. This is a highly technical job requiring skills as the virtual world is constantly changing at an unimaginable speed. Also, fast trials of cybercrimes would help. Considering the gravity of the issue, the Parliament should consider the need for the induction of Indian Cyber Services, so that all this can be possible.
In the context of social media and its challenges, it has become increasingly imperative to tackle the speed of hate speech online- either its vilification of India’s religious minorities or glorification of acts of violence against them- which devises successful strategies for both counter-radicalization and de-radicalization. There is equally no question that social media companies must shoulder responsibility when it comes to the use of their platforms as echo chambers of hate. Keeping this in mind, we can say that the national policymakers face the challenge of striking a balance between regulation and potential chaos on the internet at the same time while promoting freedom.
Counter strategies can be based on the use of soft power to create new narratives on social media and represent values of patriotism and fraternity instead of hate to make them safe spaces to have dialogue instead of extremist views. Destroying hate crimes from the root is very difficult. Tolerance and acceptance is the key to this issue.
References :
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26934537
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/bulli-bai-sulli-deals-digital-pollution-7726705/
https://theleaflet.in/bulli-bai-and-cyber-violence-a-symptom-of-power-imbalance/
https://thelogicalindian.com/app-lite/trending/bulli-bai-cases-cybercrime-crimes-against-women-33061
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-tale-of-two-communalisms/article8332198.ece
https://m.thewire.in/article/communalism/indian-muslim-woman-auction-bulli-bai/amp
https://thediplomat.com/2021/08/the-normalization-of-communal-politics-in-india/
https://www.orfonline.org/research/countering-disinformation-and-hate-speech-online/
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The foreign ministry
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