#dnaEdit | Abusive trolling must be treated as a law and order problem

The women and child development (WCD) ministry’s move to open a cyber cell headed by a top official and a hashtag #IamTrolledHelp to assist women who face online abuse was a well-intentioned move. But it appears that the ministry has piloted the decision without consulting all stakeholders, a critical failure which will prevent women from taking advantage of the facility. Already, the political divide on social media is manifesting itself with many male right-wing supporters of the BJP government expressing their unhappiness at the WCD move to police social media. Some of the tweets flagged with the #IamTrolledHelp hashtag seem more aimed at settling political scores rather than coming from women who are truly distressed by misogynistic attacks on them. The WCD ministry’s cyber cell plans to vet complaints and then forward bona fide ones to the cyber cell departments of the state police and social media companies besides asking the National Commission of Women to also monitor the complaints. 

The NCW showed little enthusiasm for WCD minister Maneka Gandhi’s plan noting that there were billions of Twitter accounts making it difficult to police the internet and that it required specialized agencies like the police to tackle cyber crime. Newspaper reports indicate that the BJP and its ideological affiliates are also opposed to Maneka’s plans because it could come in the way of the robust defence that the party’s social media warriors wage against those critical of the party and the Narendra Modi government on Twitter and Facebook. With little political support amid risk of a backlash it remains to be seen if Maneka, one of the more progressive ministers in the Modi cabinet, can sustain the plan to offer women a forum to complain about cyber abuse. Trolling is, no doubt, a big problem on social media platforms, especially Twitter.  Politicians, journalists, actors, ideologically driven individuals, and ordinary citizens have faced varying degrees of abuse on social media platforms for espousing their views, which some group or the other take offence to. In the case of women users, such abuse has taken overtly misogynistic and violent overtones with threats of rape, stalking and even acid attacks.

Maneka’s responsiveness to a keenly felt need is evident in her decision to use her ministry’s bureaucracy to take a stab at the problem. But what is required is action at multiple levels. Maneka should have interfaced with the home ministry and convened a meeting of central and state level officials in police and WCD departments. It is also important to bring social media platforms on board. Facebook has been able to deal with abusive trolls in a better manner than Twitter, where much of the abuse has proliferated. The ability to make fake profiles and use these for abusive actions is the biggest bane faced by these networks. Facebook, has to an extent dealt with the problem, by creating algorithms that deactivates profiles which do not seem to have real names. Moreover, a greater number of Facebook profiles are closed to those who are not friends unlike Twitter accounts which are mostly open to non-followers as well.

Recently, the WCD ministry had mandated that matrimonial websites verify accounts with government identification documents to curb misuse and cheating through the use of fake profiles. This was a milestone decision and it remains to be seen if such authentication of users will be extended to social media as well. However, the fears that such authentication will lead to surveillance and curb political dissent needs to dispelled. It is also important for political parties to insist that political messaging, campaigning and opinionating on social media platforms does not descend into defamation, abuse and threats. Such tolerance for trolling in the guise of politicking is also allowing those involved in personal crimes to get away. Ultimately, the victims of abusive trolling are not just women but also men. It must be treated as a law and order problem and attempts must be made to evolve methods to ensure that the rules governing civil behaviour in the real world are enforced in the online world too.