'Child pornography': Maliwal summons Twitter India Policy head, Delhi Police

Chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, has summoned Twitter India Policy Head and Delhi Police over tweets depicting child pornography and rape videos of women and children over the social media platform Twitter.

Taking suo moto cognizance of several tweets on Twitter openly depicting videos and photographs of sexual acts involving children, the Commission said that most of the tweets portrayed children completely naked and many of them also depicted brutal rape and other non-consensual sexual activities with children and women.

The Commission has also issued summons to Delhi Police seeking an FIR in the matter and has recommended that the children and women visible in the child pornographic and rape videos be identified and assisted.

"Shockingly, some of these videos even depicted rape with children and women while they were asleep! Some of the Twitter accounts engaging in these criminal acts appear to be running a racket wherein they seek money for providing pornographic and rape videos of children from other users of the social media platform," said DCW in a press briefing. The Commission has also shared a list of such tweets with the Delhi Police and Twitter.

"I am shocked with the kind of rape and child pornographic videos available freely on Twitter. The nauseating material needs to be immediately removed from Twitter and FIR should be registered by Delhi Police in the matter. Systems must be developed so that all such videos are immediately deleted and the perpetrators reported to the law enforcement agencies. Twitter must be held accountable for this filthy and objectionable content being available and even sold on its platform," said DCW chief Swati Maliwal.

The Commission has asked to provide reasons why the tweets were neither deleted nor reported by Twitter. The Commission has also sought data regarding the number of such tweets presently available on Twitter. Further, it has sought the number of tweets depicting child pornography and rape identified, deleted, and reported by Twitter in the past four years.

The Commission has also sought the SOPs related to deleting and reporting such content being followed by Twitter.