Mumbai: Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi in a letter to Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has highlighted incidents concerning safety of women in cyberspace. She has voiced concern over the derogatory apps like ‘’Sulli Deals’’ that demean and target women. She has urged the minister to take strict action to ensure that such nuisance is not tolerated in the country.
Priyanka has appealed to the minister to adopt a zero tolerance policy towards such platforms.
Chaturvedi said that a few months ago a YouTube channel, 'Liberal Doge’, ran a live ‘’auction’’ of women belonging to a particular community. She added that people were bidding and rating women based on their physical appearance and wrote degrading comments.
More recently, she said, an app called ‘’Sulli Deals’’ had posted pictures of several women from various professions including journalists, sourced from their social media websites without their knowledge or consent. ‘’The women targeted on the app faced threats, embarrassment, and harassment after their pictures had been put up without consent. The purpose of the app was to degrade and humiliate women belonging to a particular community,’’ she noted.
Chaturvedi said this horrifying incident has left the women scared and troubled. Some of the women have since then deleted their social media accounts and many others said they were afraid of further harassment. ‘’The issue of social and digital media to harass and attack the dignity of women is disheartening. In a country where women are already struggling with gender bias, these incidents yet again lay bare the protection and safety of women, especially in cyberspace,’’ she opined.
Chaturvedi said though Delhi and Noida police have registered cases, no real progress has been made so far. The lack of stringent and efficient preventive laws and punishments for such cases only motivates the perpetrators, she added.
