Cops out to crack down on cyberbullying

Cops out to crack down on cyberbullying
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Highlights

In the wake of four instances of ‘revenge’ posts on social media after breakups being reported in Hyderabad in a span of a fortnight, the Crime Investigation Department (CID) sleuths have been working overtime to check the cyberbullying.  They have been tracking down ‘revenge’ posts on Facebook, where individuals are posting private pictures of women they were in a relationship with. 

Hyderabad: In the wake of four instances of ‘revenge’ posts on social media after breakups being reported in Hyderabad in a span of a fortnight, the Crime Investigation Department (CID) sleuths have been working overtime to check the cyberbullying. They have been tracking down ‘revenge’ posts on Facebook, where individuals are posting private pictures of women they were in a relationship with.

CID SP Rammohan said though the people posting such pictures thought they could remain anonymous, there were ways to track and trace such individuals. “As long as they use the internet, they can be tracked. There is very little chance of a person committing a cybercrime and getting away with it,” he said. Even a negligible digital imprint would be adequate to nab those committing cybercrimes, the SP said, adding that the sleuths had zero tolerance on cybercrimes against women. “Ever since the formation of Telangana, there has been a steady decline in cybercrimes,” he said.

Reports of cybercrimes in the State shows 764 cases in 2014, and the same was 695 in 2015. The number was nosedived to 640 in 2016. However, the police exhorted women not to allow even their husbands to record sensitive images. There were instances of revenge obscenity on social networking sites, but women were not daring to complain to the police, said the police officer.

Recently, the CID also received a complaint about obscene content on porn websites. The Film Artistes’ Association reported that faces of actresses had been morphed onto the pictures of nude porn stars. The association submitted 21 URLs or website links to the police, following which the police identified nine persons from Gujarat, Bihar, Karnataka and Telangana who were operating the sites. While eight of these people have been arrested, police are on the lookout for one more person.

The sleuths use technology to nab the culprits. IP address, mobile tower location and banking transactions can become a major clue to identify the wrongdoer. Rammohan said, “We are requesting service providers to block the content when it comes to the privacy of individuals.

On Facebook alone, we have reported about 800 videos, but the problem is some other person can upload the same content with a different format or file size, so that it won’t get detected by the algorithm.” He said while it was difficult to curb the menace, the police were trying to reduce the ‘ease of access’ to the porn content.

In the past, the Telangana CID identified 1,400 websites with porn content and appealed to the Central government to block them and the matter is now pending in the apex court.

By: Kartheek B

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