Despite the existence of regulatory mechanisms, we have not been able to effectively handle online safety challenges owing to the lack of proper implementation
The internet has evolved as an indispensable tool for transforming our society and culture. Women, especially those living in rural India, have been empowered to speak about their diverse realities, discuss common concerns and organise for change. However, the challenges of censorship and overregulation emanating from actions like blocking of LGBTQ+ sites or silencing of female voices on social media through misogynistic hate speech and trolling, make it essential to find sustainable solutions to these concerns that are threatening the online safety of vulnerable communities. After all, with the internet becoming the ultimate manifestation of our social reality, attaining online equality is paramount for ensuring the same offline.
The feminist landscape of online hate: The last decade has witnessed instances of cyberstalking, rape threats and other forms of gendered violence increase at an alarming rate on the internet. In stark contrast to claims that “cyberhate” is predominantly innocuous, there are a range of academic studies which prove the widespread suffering caused, owing to the consequent social, psychological and economic harm inflicted upon women due to this challenge. The problem of gendered cyberhate has become far more prevalent since the advent of web 2.0, which was marked by the shift towards a greater amount of user-generated content, collaboration, interactivity and information sharing over the web. This facilitated online antagonists to get easier access to their targets in a manner that was never possible before. According to a 2015 report by the United Nations, 73 per cent of women have experienced some form of online violence. An analysis conducted by a leading daily revealed that out of every 10 writers who receive abusive comments online, eight were women.
Types of online hate: Online abuse can be placed on a wide spectrum of violence, ranging from mildly irritating (cyberstalking) at one end to unequivocally criminal (revenge pornography) at the other. One peculiar characteristic of this challenge as seen in India and many other developing economies, is the dimension of domestic violence which is increasingly being observed as a major component of most of the cases of online harassment. Some of the most prominent forms of gendered cyberhate faced by women online include cyberbullying, a challenge whose primary target is mainly school and college girls. Then there is cyberstalking, which includes the perpetrator making unwarranted attempts to contact the target by installing a spyware on her phone or hacking her email/social media accounts. Plus there is denial of service, wherein, the online platforms disables the person to voice herself, often due to her unconventional views. Other major forms of online harm are doxing, which involves publication of personally identifiable information about a person that enables online antagonists to find their targets offline, and the most critically dangerous of all including revenge pornography (publishing sexually explicit content, often of a former partner without their consent) and sextortion (hacking webcameras, installing malwares or impersonating as someone’s romantic interest to obtain intimate information and images).
Implications of the harm on users: Extensive evidence exists to show that gendered cyberhate inflicts significant psychological, social, reputational and economic distress and harm upon women. This includes putting limitations on their ability to engage in meaningful activism to respond to the challenge of gendered cyberhate itself. This leads to serious concerns of violation of both rights guaranteed under international human rights laws and the Constitution of India, including their right to free speech, right to informational privacy, right to bodily integrity and right to reputation, to name a few. As another major concern, it is seen that women who depend on the internet to earn their livelihood are more prone to receiving online hate. This causes serious repercussions for them to find and keep access to their jobs and socially and professionally network themselves — causing blatant breach of their right to livelihood and gender equality.
Understanding and solving the problem: We must not forget that India has not only bagged one of the top ranks for having the highest number of internet users, but it is also the country that tops the statistics of global sexual harassment. The harassment faced by women in the physical world is mirrored by the image harassment faced by them in the online world. A survey conducted by Feminism in India underscored that 50 per cent of women in major cities of India have faced online abuse. However, women are not the only victims of such abuse. There is concurrently rampant online harassment of individuals from marginalised genders and sexualities as well. A truly intersectional view of the issue demands that it is specifically addressed through policy and law, as it is evident that the laws at present that were created with the purpose of protecting women are failing at their task to create a safe place online. Cyberhate, specifically, is a growing issue in the Indian online space. With a charged society polarised by religion and politics, the instances of hateful, violating, or mean comments that occur in the comment sections, forums and on other websites or social media have multiplied. In the case of cyberhate not all violations may be explicitly against the law, they are still serious and unacceptable as a part of online presence, as much as it would be in the physical society. It is important to recognise that to truly tackle the issue of cyberhate, our society, platforms and institutions including the Government must come together. Cyberhate must be dealt with at a societal level through awareness and change in mindsets while institutions must provide for zero tolerance and also grievance redressal. It must exist at all levels. For example, employers must show a responsibility and obligation towards staff to provide them with tools or resources to deal with the cyberhate that they might face as a consequence of the work they are required to do online. Also, legal measures and institutional methods against hate speech are unlikely to be able to tackle the sheer volume of online publications. A complete solution would be to work together with ISPs and platforms i.e. intermediaries to develop comprehensive codes of conduct or community guidelines based on which removal of offensive content takes place. Platforms have the ability to use their technology to detect such content and thereby filter/flag or even remove it. It is equally important to enhance their responsibility in these scenarios to be able to complement the efforts of law enforcement.
The way forward: With the IPC, IT Act and the POCSO rules in place we have adequate laws to tackle cyberhate. The challenge is to effectively implement these laws to ensure safe online space. The Draft Intermediary Guidelines, 2018, envisaged under the IT Act received extant criticism owing to its deleterious impact on free speech and privacy of users. If implemented, it would pierce the encryption-enabled anonymity enjoyed by women and marginalised groups. This anonymity is crucial to tackle trolls with counterspeech and ensure online safety. A recent study explains how the mandate of proactive monitoring under the Draft Guidelines by using automated tools and introducing traceability, by breaking encryption, would undermine the safety of users.
Despite the existence of regulatory mechanisms, we have not been able to effectively handle online safety challenges owing to the lack of proper implementation. The onus of reform cannot be entirely placed on regulation and also lies on the participants in the ecosystem who have a major role in ensuring that progressive laws and policies are rightly implemented and followed. It is the duty of the State to effectively prosecute perpetrators of online hate.
Shreya is Policy Research Assistant and Mehta is Strategic Engagement and Research Coordinator, The Dialogue. The article was first published in The Pioneer.
