This PPT is about the harassment of women in the online world

1. Women and Social
Media
BY ANISH BACHCHAN

2. Introduction
In 2004, Mark Zuckerburg or the Zucc as called by the internet community created
Facebook. The main aim of the site was to connect people. Fast forward to the present day
during the covid era which is one of the biggest global crisis since the end of World War 2,
social media has become a medium to connect more people who now have being locked in
their homes like house arrest. And there are a lot of social media platforms now for example
Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, Tiktok (a child predator spying malware app now banned),
Reddit and vice versa. However for all its talks about connecting people, social media
ironically and unfortunately brought a lot of people or bad actors who have the intention to
harass other people and divide them up just like the British with their divide and rule policy.
And given the whole situation right now, women are the most vulnerable group of people
in this. They often get rape threats, cat calling, slut shaming, stalking and other kinds of
harassment by the men who are virtually unknown or are intentionally doing this in the
name of fun. This has led to the various cases of depression, suicide, self-harm and a lot of
unpleasant stuff. So I’ll give more insight on the topic.

3. Online Harassment of women
 Al Jazeera made an interesting report regarding the situation. It states that
women and young girls are quitting social media because of the
harassment they are receiving. According to them One in five girls has
abandoned or cut down their use on social media because they are being
stalked, get really offensive messages and stuff like that.
 Common attacks are more often on sites like Facebook, Instagram,
Whatsapp, Snapchat and vice versa. A survey polled around 14000 girls
and young women gives a very unfortunate results. The age group of 15-
25 are the ones who are harassed online countries like Brazil, The United
States, India, Spain, Thailand and vice versa.

4. Why women are being harassed ?
 “Choose rape jokes, slut shaming, revenge porn, and an endless tide of
depressing misogyny.” –Mark Renton, T2 Trainspotting.
 The one reason I can think of why women are being harassed online is because
of the change in times. Time is a really dynamic thing and it literally changes
everything. The mentality regarding women which were once conservative
especially in our country’s case have been changing in the contemporary times.
The mentality where women and girls are suppose to look after the house is
now decaying slowly. Women are now becoming the breadwinners of the
family.
 They are also becoming a prominent member of the society because of their
views and opinions. Not to mention how Indira Gandhi shaped the 1970s and
80s India not because she was a women but she was also a strong leader. The
said example states that women are now becoming key prominent political
figures too just like the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Celebrities are also
defying the gender roles given to them and they do everything to make
themselves important.

5.  Revolver Ocelot from Metal Gear Solid once said- “No mentality lasts
forever.” With the roles of women changing from housekeeper and mother
to breadwinners and figures in the society, some men cannot digest that.
They either do it for trolling purposes or they do it intentionally because
they are misogynists and their mentality towards women is toxic and
dying. Not to mention how women defying patriarchy is offensive to them
but they don’t bother to show any remorse when they send rape threats,
jokes or they slut shame them online vice versa.

6. Examples
 Agrima Joshua Incident
In July of this year Agrima Joshua, a standup comedian made a joke about
Shivaji Maharaj in 2017. Although it was a joke this did not sit well with a lot
of people (I don’t even know why people got offended over a two year old
joke). Her set was thrashed by the mob which forced the comedian to make
an apology.
Subham Mishra who is an internet personality whose shenanigans could
compared to Hindustani Bhau made a video where he literally gave threats
online to the comedian. This resulted in widespread condemnation against
him and Hindustani Bhau who supported this as well. He was arrested by the
Vadodara Police few days later.

7.  Rhea Chakraborty
The person in question was the girlfriend of the now deceased Sushant Singh
Rajput. The actor committed suicide on 14th June 2020. His death cause a
massive outrage from the public and the media. Because of the outrage,
various Bollywood celebrities were harassed by the media and the public.
With the rise of JFK like conspiracy theories and the media’s role in milking
the poor’s actor death, Rhea was subjected to massive online and real
harassment by the media and the people just for the sake of TRP, clout or
views on YouTube. Because of this, some begin to question the morality of
this case.

8. Psychological effects
 They won’t be able to feel themselves safe.
 Damage to self esteem, self confidence and the questioning of their own
self.
 Resorting to self harm
 Fear of their lives or fear of leaving homes.
 Suicidal thoughts and actual suicuide
 For example- A Japanese wrestler Hana Kimura committed suicide after
being harassed online on twitter.

9. Legal Remedies
Sections in the IPC
1. Section 509: Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a
woman
2. Section 499 and 500: Defamation and its punishment
3. Section 503: Criminal Intimidation
4. Section 354: Voyeurism- Taking photos without consent and other crimes
regarding women.
5. Section 228a- Disclosure of identity of women.
6. Section 67, 67A and 67B of the IT Act prevents publication of obscene
materials.

10.  Other Remedies
1. Prevention against destruction of evidence: Change your account password
and make sure no one knows what it is. Take all necessary precautions to
protect your phone/laptop/other digital device well from intrusion or theft.
2. Preservation of important conversations etc.: Taking screenshots of relevant
messages, conversations and comments always helps. If the conversation
happened over an application such as Whatsapp that allows you to e-mail it
to yourself, do it.
3. Witnesses: Make sure there are some trusted people around you who saw
what happened, so that they could later testify if needed.
4. Laws: Stricter laws need to be made so that no one could harass a woman
online.

11. Conclusion
In conclusion I would say that change will have happen overnight. We just
need to be more aware about these issues in the pandemic era and how it
could effect a lot of people. We need to be more sensible about the issues
regarding women and we need to show some respect too.