Had she seen the video, a colleague asked. She didn’t and when she did, she had to sit down. The 13-second clip had been shot, surreptitiously, by her then boyfriend, a year senior in college. When he went abroad for further studies, the relationship ended and he uploaded the clip. For two years, it was viewed on porn channels and social media.
She knew she had to file a police complaint. “I didn’t have a choice. The video was on 120 porn websites. There were vulgar, body-shaming comments,” she said. Nine days after her complaint, he was arrested.
Her immediate concern was that the video should be taken down. “I am clearly visible,” she said on the phone. “I go to work knowing my colleagues and clients have seen it.” But each time it was taken down from one website, it popped up on another.
In June this year, she approached the Madras High Court. Within days, the court ordered the Union ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity) to use technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based content recognition tools, to block the video on all platforms. Despite this, said the woman, it continues to circulate on the dark web.
Technology was supposed to have been an advance for the greater good. But it has also enabled unprecedented abuse of women and girls that includes online harassment, cyberstalking, doxxing, deepfakes, coordinated harassment and non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), or what used to be called “revenge porn”. One in four female journalists and one in three women parliamentarians have reported online violence, according to UN Women, which is highlighting digital violence as part of this year’s ongoing 16 days of activismHuman rights defenders, women in political life, and vulnerable children are also singled out, In the last 12 months, 300 million children were affected by child sexual abuse and exploitation,
Armed with anonymity, abusers access a global, low-cost network that has been weaponised for money, perversity or to target women with opposing ideologies by seeking to shame and publicly humiliate them. In 2021, for instance, prominent Muslim women were “auctioned” on Github. The first arrests were made only at the end of the year. By March 2022, the main accused was out on bail.
We are still combatting the global epidemic of violence against women and girls where one in three is subjected to physical or sexual violence. Now, we are faced with a new problem that comes at a time when the manosphere is spreading toxic ideas of masculinity and women’s organizations are undergoing funding cuts. Fewer than 40% of countries have laws that protect women and girls from cyber harassment, leaving 1.8 billion without access to legal protection, according to the World Bank.
Victims pay an unimaginable price with their mental health, relationships, careers, and even access to the internet. There is self-harm and death by suicide.
In India, the woman’s petition led to a court order to Meity to come up with a comprehensive plan on curtailing NCII. In October, that nine-page document included how and where to lodge a complaint, the setting up of a cybercrime cell, the removal of images within 24 hours, and the use of technology to ensure the image is not re-uploaded on other platforms.
“This should never have happened to me,” said the woman. She learned subsequently she wasn’t the only one. The same man had taken and uploaded videos of other women. She says she promised them she would fight on their behalf. “I will help you take them down. You did nothing wrong.”
Namita Bhandare writes on gender. The views expressed are personal
