She was 18 — beautiful, witty, and popular. Her dream of becoming a social media influencer was quickly becoming a reality, with 1.42 lakh followers on Instagram. But in June this year, her life took a tragic turn when she died by suicide. A Class 12 student, she battled for her life in the hospital for a week.
As per police reports, she had become the target of cyber trolls following a breakup with her boyfriend, who was later arrested. Sadly, this young girl from Kerala did not survive. Her story is far from isolated; one doesn’t need to venture into the dark web to witness the horrors of the internet — especially if one is a woman.
“They morphed my picture into nudes and created a fake profile. When I first found out, I was worried,” Priya Lalwani, who works at an edtech firm, shares. “Oh my god, this is not me! What if my parents see? What if they found out?”
Pritha Sarkar, who works as an assistant professor at a university in Odisha was terrorised by Facebook notifications during her PhD in Kanpur. “Every time I opened Facebook, there were hundreds of notifications.”
‘How much do you charge for a night?’
These (along with cuss words and other profanities) made up most of the notifications Pritha received. “It was hell! I didn’t know what I did wrong. I didn’t know why I was being slut shamed and targeted,” Pritha shares. Her only mistake was sharing a cartoon depicting a man and a woman at the beach, where the man says to the woman, “Why don’t you dress properly?”
“I was about to get married and needed to work on my papers, but I was traumatised. Imagine waking up to over a hundred notifications, most of which questioned your character — how would you feel?” she adds.
According to NCRB data, cybercrime cases in India rose significantly, jumping 63.48% from 27,248 in 2018 to 44,548 in 2019. This trend continued with a further increase of 12.32% in 2020. Additionally, a UNICEF poll revealed that over 33% of young people across 30 countries have reported being victims of online bullying.
Nirali Bhatia, along with her husband, Ritesh Bhatia, have been helping victims of cyberbullying since 2016 and elaborates on the problem. Together they run CYBER B.A.A.P — an acronym for “Cyberbullying Awareness, Action, and Prevention” — their brainchild, a not-for-profit organisation registered as the ‘Niralibhatia Cyber Wellness Foundation’.
“Honestly, we don’t have any specific redressal mechanism for cyberbullying, per se,” she says, pointing out two of the major challenges women may face when trying to fight cyberbullying.
“Number one, we are not aware of all the sections it [cyberbullying] falls under, or how to report it. Number two, there is a lot of guilt and shame associated. Because even police professionals are not yet sensitised towards these kinds of crimes. The first question is, ‘Why did you even click a picture like this?’ That itself takes you back,” Nirali explains.
For Pritha, both these roadblocks were a reality. “It’s a small issue, they’re just young guys,” she recalls the communication she received when she reached out to the cyber crime department.
“Initially, I did not know what to do. I really had no clue. But I was losing sleep; I began losing some confidence. I was in a bad place,” Pritha recalls; she pauses, perhaps trying to subdue the trauma that some men, hiding behind computers, scarred her with.
“My husband, who was my then partner, was the one who told me that this is cyberbullying and that I can lodge a complaint,” she says. “I followed up (with the cyber department) for three months, but nothing happened.”
“This is what happens,” says Nirali. “I’ll give you an example, a very young girl had reached out to us. I think she was 19-20 then. Someone was sharing her number, photographs, and name on pornographic websites. Somebody created a profile, and you know, they would impersonate her and chat with people. She started getting these random calls. So she reported. She told her parents, and they went to the police station. They knew someone, and the profile was deleted. But the problem continued. When one profile was deleted, another one opened,” she adds.
The young girl reached out to Nirali, and she recalls taking down 16 to 17 such profiles of hers.
“The other day, an acquaintance sent me an account with my photo. It had my face, but it was a nude; a morphed picture,” Priya says. But the number of times Priya has found herself in such instances has made her indifferent today; she has her life to lead.
“At that point I was like, okay, I’ll clarify it on my personal account, and ask everybody to report it. And most times it gets deleted,” Priya says. “I checked after it four days later and the profile was deleted,” she adds.
Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have the option to make a profile private. Nirali says that it is an important preventive step. But for some people, a private profile might not be an option. “At this point, if you ask me, I’m so indifferent about it because as someone with a public account — I don’t want to make my account private; I do aim to be a creator. I don’t want the account to be private just because people can misuse my information if I have a public account,” Priya says.
She and her friends have also been subject to becoming the face of cyber scams. Nirali explains that this is not uncommon.
“Honestly, there is nothing much we can do to prevent it because of the freely available technology. See, I believe technology is never good or bad, it’s the purpose for which you’re using it that shapes it up. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a wonderful thing, at the same time we’re seeing this rise of AI images and stuff,” she says.
“In my organisation, we get complaints with screenshots of people telling young girls, ‘If you don’t share such a picture, I’m going to nudify your image’. How many women would actually go and complain?” Nirali points out.
Priya has spoken to some of her fake accounts; not the ones that nudified her. There were others who used her picture to run elaborate scams. “Like, It had happened earlier as well. Somebody made a fake account, with a bio saying ‘vote for me’ and it was leading them to a spam link. So that is still there,” Priya says, elucidating how the volume of such crimes can make it difficult for any confirmative action to take place.
“It never got flagged down by the platform despite several reports. And a lot of them follow a similar pattern. Most of them have ‘vote for me in this link’ and there’s a link. It’s like spam, where they can hack your account and something like that. All these accounts that I’ve seen of myself and my friends have that link,” she adds.
Priya has even engaged with one of her fake profiles. One that had the ‘vote for me’ link.
“Even if I’m talking to the person on the account who has my pictures and everything, they’re like, oh, we’re participating in a contest, so we found this. I ask, ‘Can you just remove it?’ Some of the times it happens that they just remove it and put someone else’s picture. This happens every two to three months. And it happens to a lot of girls I know,” Priya says.
When asked about how they deal with it today, given the commonality of victimisation in a space that is ‘virtually’ untraceable, where the horrors that plague society can run amok, they have a common answer: indifference, like Priya pointed out earlier.
“I’m so indifferent to the entire process of it because, in the end, I rely on systems. For example, Instagram and Facebook have this system where they vet these profiles and take them off. I don’t feel like it’s something I need to pay attention to. I lead my life…it [cyberbullying] happens on the sideline, and I flag it from my profile when it happens,” Priya says.
“I have a life. It’s not confined to the virtual world,” Pritha says. “I can’t waste my life on perverted men misusing my picture just because I wore a skirt.”
‘To talk to someone, that is primary’
A few years ago, when teenagers started taking their own lives over video games, the influence of the internet asserted its presence. Today, even world governments are wary of its influence as could be perceived from reports of the 2016 US Presidential election.
The internet can be a more dangerous world than “the streets that women are often advised to avoid after sunset”. Online, there is no sunrise or sunset; it’s a constant, deep, and dark environment.
“We don’t really have stringent laws yet. I have had victims showing me screenshots of conversations where the perpetrators are writing to them: ‘Do what you like, I know the Police will do nothing.’ It’s not like the police don’t want to do anything; it is just the volume of cases and the anonymity that online media allows,” Nirali says.
“Because the platforms are also not very prompt in collaborating and sharing information. We have been informed that, according to the latest guidelines, if a woman or child is subjected to derogatory images being circulated, they can directly contact the grievance officer for assistance,” she adds.
However, getting responses is often challenging. “When you report on the app, most of the time the response is that it doesn’t violate their community guidelines or something similar. Even if an account is taken down, how long does it take for the perpetrator to create another one?” Nirali points out.
“In 2016-17 I was part of a television show about tracking down these trolls who troll celebrities. Basically, the objective was to let the world know that anonymity is a myth online. There were times when we would be successful. I’d say it’s 80-20; 80% of the time you can, 20% of the time it’s challenging,” Nirali informs.
“Technology is improving. It is becoming much more difficult (to trace down perpetrators). It’s not always possible to track them down, and it’s time-consuming,” she adds.
Addressing cyberbullying
Both Pritha and Priya agree that the first step for a woman to combat this menace is to confide in someone. “To talk to someone, that is primary,” Pritha says. “Yes, for many people, reaching out and talking is essential,” Priya adds.
Nirali sees the blockade from societal stigma as a major problem in countering a menace that she believes is a pandemic. The NHRC data supports her claims. However, if you are a woman who has fallen victim to the malicious trolls that make the internet a dark place, there are certain steps you should take, starting with talking to someone.
“You are never in the wrong,” Nirali says, explaining that sharing an incident with a loved one can help alleviate guilt and lead to concrete steps the victim can take. “Nothing is foolproof,” she acknowledges but asserts that women have no reason to feel guilty or ashamed because of a pervert’s actions, like morphing their images.
“It is not you; it is not me,” Pritha adds. As time goes on, the internet will increasingly dictate our lives more than the streets do. It’s crucial to understand that harassment is harassment, and bullying is bullying — whether it’s physical or virtual.
There are preventive steps that one can take, Nirali points out. The first is the utilisation of social media tools that are available at one’s disposal.
Anyone can be a victim, and it’s not a matter of guilt or shame. To confide and then report about the crime are crucial in combatting, what Nirali aptly labels “a new age pandemic”. With modern guidelines in place, any victim of any form of cyberbullying can register a complaint at www.cybercrime.gov.in. The guidelines ensure that full anonymity is maintained throughout the entire redressal process.
Edited by Pranita Bhat
