INTRODUCTION
Today, social media has become an important platform for posting about crimes to create awareness between people of different nations, but who knew they had drawbacks as well. Looking at the Indian situation of punishments for the crimes committed there are yet plenty of rapes and other crimes taking place in India. Especially Rape, almost every state, city is filing a case for rape that has been being committed, protests, moaning all this is being posted on Social Media Platforms such as on Instagram, twitter etc. yet it doesn’t seem to be bringing any change as such. More likely it seems like through social media cyber-crimes have risen. Since social media has a meme culture going on, it sometimes for gaining public sympathy favors the criminals as well[1]. Since we have freedom of speech and expression people misuse it by giving disrespectful or sexual comments on posts. There are two sides to this: positive and negative but usually it seems that the negative part of social media is given more emphasis on the part of crime.
Recently as well there have been so many crimes which were being viral on social media such as the Indore Murder case or the Porsche case or recently as well there was a case in Delhi where a 23 year old boy, Sahil who was a son of a single mother was hit by a Scorpio car and his mother was seen protesting seeking for justice. Such videos bring awareness to people about what is going on in the country but what about those who view such videos and realize that getting justice in our country takes years and they think that taking revenge or drunk driving is not an issue as they don’t care for others and sometimes crave to seek attention of people ? some people still have a mentality to dominate women, mistreat them, pass wrongful comments which are been visible on social media and news channels at times by politicians and criminals etc.
Social media cannot only give the positive side, Agreed. But it should have at least helped in reducing the crime rates. Rather many cases of hacking as well have been rising; AI and technology as well are being used for the wrong reasons. Almost everyone in today’s world is using AI tools such as ChatGPT, google Gemini etc. But mostly usen by young youth for the purpose of creating deep-fake videos or images and posting on social media platforms to grab attention of people.
WOMEN GETTING AFFECTED BY SOCIAL MEDIA CRIMES
Nowadays there are various issues faced by women such as sextortion, where the FBI has seen a huge increase in cases where children and teens are being threatened and coerced into sending explicit images online.[2] This is increasing the cases of cyber-crimes. Men making sexist comments on women’s post is a common Social Media issue faced by woman. Posts regarding rape creates a scary situation in the minds of girls since media has almost always tried to make the news more scandalous. On top of this there are so many more cases based on financial frauds etc. through social media. Cyberbullying is another crime faced by women and young youth, where women are getting harassed digitally thus creating a trauma in their head, this is does not only take place in big cities but also in small towns where women are being digitally harassed but can’t talk about it due to lack of knowledge of laws available to them and at times due to the trauma faced by them. These issues sometimes might seem small to few people but create a major impact on those facing such problems.
There are many cases where women face assaults and post it on their social media and in return get comments on what she wears or the people she is surrounded with which makes them think that they have the right over harassing her socially. And its not only woman but even men nowadays are getting socially harassed if they try to promote LGBTQ+ communities or if men try doing makeup, and it is men only who harass other men thinking it’s what alpha male does. Sometimes its just for the purpose of saying that India has a freedom of speech and expression but in reality if someone expresses themselves, the society at large makes sure that they are demotivated or harassed to lower down their potential.
SOCIAL MEDIA SCAMS
Scams such as deepfakes or voice cloning are recent scams taking place on social media. The use of AI to create deepfakes and voice cloning leads to exploitation of personal data.[3] Since, the world is digitalizing many scammers get easy access to people’s information through their posts on Instagram, twits posted on twitter, LinkedIn profiles, Facebook etc. people don’t realize that them posting their location, what they are doing etc. are recorded by the scammers and make it easy for them to stalk your movements.
Even though there is an awareness about digital scammers or hackers, people become victims of such digital scams and get looted which is rising the cyber cases. Social media helps bring awareness about the scams, but people use hashtags and posts just for the sake of getting public attention and views.
JUDICIAL POINT OF VIEW
The rise in cyber-crimes, crisis of Digital Personal Data Protection Act has become a major issue in India. The CBI has claimed to stop digital arrest as it is considered as extortion or robbery which is a criminal activity under Sec. 318(4), Sec. 351, Sec. 336 and Sec. 308 of Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023[4]. Sec. 66D of the IT Act, 2000 specifically targets cheating by personation using computer resources.[5] But besides this the court has restrained bail for those committing frauds, in the case of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) judgement influenced courts to scrutinize how social media platforms and banks collect, store and process user data.[6] Another case was regarding the Influencer Accountability , Ajay Gautam v. Union of India.[7] All these cases led to the legal interventions in India to overcome social media and online scams.
CONCLUSION
Social media might bring awareness, but this awareness is not creating an impact by reducing the crimes in India. People post about the crimes taking place in India through hashtags but no one actually talks about the remedies that could be initiated to reduce such problems with the help of social media itself such as by reporting any unidentifiable contacts, providing emergency contacts of cyber securities in cases of digital scams, reporting fake or scandalous news that create terror in the minds of people. Surprisingly, most people are unaware of the contacts of cyber security, people being aware that clicking on random links could create a financial fraud yet commit the mistake in lack of consciousness of the surrounding. Therefore, there is a need to bring awareness of the laws or emergency contacts for people who are unaware so that they don’t fall for such frauds or scams.
Author(s) Name: Rasika Nerurkar (MIT-World Peace University, Pune)
References:
[1] impact of social media on crime: a multifaceted analysis, <www.theacademic.in>
[2] Sextortion, Federal Bureau of investigation (.gov) <https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/scams-and-safety/common-frauds-and-scams/sextortion>
[3] Social media scams, scam watch <https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/social-media-scams>
[4] Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, s.318(4), s.351, s.336, s.308
[5] IT Act 2000, s.66D
[6] Justice K.S. Puttaswamy(Retd) And Anr. V. Union of India and Ors [AIR 2017 SC 4161]
[7] Ajay Gautam v. Union of India, CRL.M.A. 1623/ 2021
