On January 25, West Bengal resident Ankita, whose photograph was misused on Reddit, had filed a complaint with the cybercrime division in the matter. In her complaint, she said an unknown person sent her a link on Twitter, and when she opened the link, she found her photograph was morphed and used on a Reddit group by user Radha Sheikh (Radha_seikh).
Ankita further added that though the post had been deleted after she shared it on social media to bring it to the attention of people and authorities, she would want to take action against the person who morphed her photograph. She said, “Today, they did this with me tomorrow with some other woman.” She further urged the Police to take action against Reddit and the person who morphed photographs of women.
In the thread, Ankita mentioned she was not the only one, and there were many women whose photographs had been morphed and misused on the internet. While she thanked everyone who poured support for her on social media, Ankita tagged Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Ministry of Communications, Electronics and Information Technology, and said, “Sir, I hope you will read this and amplify. Hundreds of groups are present on many social media platforms, yesterday this happened with me, tomorrow it can happen with another woman, kindly take action against all these groups on social media.”
‘We all are together in this’
Ankita further asked those who were criticising BJP for not supporting its worker. She said, “To the people who are constantly writing that BJP is not taking care of me. I want to tell you that many people are with me, not everything everyone can show, please keep your propaganda away from my name.”
She further added she was overwhelmed with the support she got on social media platforms. She said, “Keep supporting me to fight all the odds. We all are together in this. It’s really sad that Hindu women are being targeted like this every day. I was pained to know that I was not the only one many other girls’ pictures are still present. I will fight for those women and for all the women in this world.”
New IT rules give power to users to get objectionable content removed
Union Minister of State for Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrashekhar, while replying to a post by netizen Anshul Saxena urged Ankita to immediately write to Reddit to get the objectionable content removed.
Quoting Rule 3(2)b of the IT Rules, he said, “She has powers to seek removal quoting rule 3(2)b of the new IT Rules. I request Ankita to immediately write to Reddit. The new IT rules make platforms accountable to users.”
Rule 3(2)b of the IT Rules
In 2021, the Government of India issued new Rules under which the intermediary has to act on the complaint filed in relation to any objectionable content. Rule 3(2)B reads, “The intermediary shall, within twenty-four hours from the receipt of a complaint made by an individual or any person on his behalf under this sub-rule, in relation to any content which is prima facie in the nature of any material which exposes the private area of such individual, shows such individual in full or partial nudity or shows or depicts such individual in any sexual act or conduct, or is in the nature of impersonation in an electronic form, including artificially morphed images of such individual, take all reasonable and practicable measures to remove or disable access to such content which is hosted, stored, published or transmitted by it.”
Rape fantasies, sexual objectification and harassment of Hindu women on social media platforms
In a new form of communal hatred, social media is being used to sexually objectify and harass Hindu women, but it is not being reported properly. There are tons of images of women who are portrayed as Hindu with bindi, mangal sutra, sindoor and saree and posted with comments like how they are ‘waiting’ for a ‘Muslim d*ck’ as only he could ‘satisfy’ her. The sexually explicit images are often morphed to show the woman in a derogatory way, and sometimes even threatening way. The sexually explicit images are posted with hashtags such as ‘HSlut4MStud’ (Hindu sl*t for Muslim stud).
Due to the hate and propaganda against ‘Sanghis’, a term used for those who disagree with self-proclaimed liberals and Congress fans, it does not come as a surprise that people fantasising of rape of Hindu women, specifically by Muslim men, are either ignored or shielded by the so-called liberals who dismiss the very idea of Hindus being victims because ‘how can a religious majority in India be a victim’.