(Representative image)Perversion knows no bounds in the cyber space. Online peeping Toms are not contended by passing an unfortunate woman’s leaked clip from inbox to inbox. They want to drag her out on the street and brand her too
Pranksters, perverts and porn rule social media
“Finally! She took revenge on the world by taking her own life.” Facebook and WhatsApp were abuzz with this fake piece of news about the suicide of a girl whose naked photo had earlier circulated on the Net. The cyber world celebrated the news of the death with the same sadistic pleasure with which they kept the nudity of an unsuspecting girl under public glare day after day, month after month.
This, however, was a strange case. There were two families humiliated by the mindless circulation of the fake news. The girl in the photo is still living in shame caused by the calumnious attitude of a classmate. The girl in the obit had died of an illness five years ago. Both of them happened to share the same name.
“We are very sad. What can you do if someone decides to misuse an obit that appeared in a newspaper? There should be strict action against those who circulated this false news,” a relative of the deceased girl said. The family, however, has stayed clear of filing a police complaint for fear of further taint on the girl’s memory.
“Can’t the cyber police take action against those cruel people who disgraced a girl whose life was snuffed out at an early age?” the relative asked.
But why would someone wish death for a girl who was humiliated for no fault of hers? It was her classmate who circulated her photos with another video on social media. The police have registered a case on a complaint by the girl’s family and arrested the culprits. There are others who want to keep the memory of that humiliation alive by putting up more fake videos.
Teaching aid with a difference
There are exclusive groups and communities dedicated to teachers on Facebook. These are supposed to be a common platform for teachers to share their thoughts and plans on education. A lady teacher once asked for a motivational video in the group and received several ones in return. She had a cursory look at the videos and played one of them in her class. Students eagerly watched the video which featured the story of individuals who fought the odds. They were watching Anne Frank when things changed for the worse. Porn clips filled the screen from nowhere. The video shared by a teacher for another teacher was porn masqueraded as motivation.
Plus-two students in an unaided school in Kochi live in oppression. They cannot talk to each other, they cannot crack joke or laugh. They vent their frustration on Facebook once they return home in the evening. All the boys in the class would be present on Facebook around midnight. This is their only platform for a candid conversation. One of the teachers who wanted to keep a tab on the students managed to secure a student’s password and logged in as if she were that boy. She was shocked to hear her students passing lewd remarks on each of the teachers and reminding each other of the teachers’ accidentally revealed body parts.
A teacher who joined an aided college after a long stint in Oman had another Facebook horror to share. She was active on social media, with most of her student as her friends. One of the boys created an impression by his opinions on current issues. As online chats progressed, he showed his true colours. He would ask the teacher about her private life. He would address her as if she were his sweetheart. He would bombard her inbox with love message. The teacher finally had to take screenshots of his messages and go to his parents.
Pranks are fast yielding to perversion. A boy in Malappuram was beaten up by his neighbours for pasting the photos of a girl and a boy in his class with a caption, “wedding today”, and tagging it to his friends.
A 10th standard student fell in love with a 29-year-old man. She shared with him the password to her Facebook account. As the affair came to an end, her Facebook page was filled with her own naked photos. The ex-boyfriend landed in police custody after a detailed investigation.
End of innocence
Scores of Facebook pages exist with promises of delivering minor girls and virgins. They contain photos of girls frolicking in amusement parks or swimming pools or participating in sports events or simply in school uniform, with certain body parts in focus. Online pimps collect such innocent photos and upload them with obscene captions to attract pervert customers. The girls in the photographs may not even know that such photos of themselves exist.
Now infamous Facebook page named “Kochusundari” was liked and shared by tens of thousands of people. The page contained photos of little girls with their “price tags”. The operators of the page would study the background and profession of each of the prospective customer before fixing rates of their victims. Most of the customers were searching for virgins. The police cracked down on the page by disguising as such a customer. The response was even stranger. The undercover policeman was told to wait until 10 in the morning when the tuition centres opened.
The probe into the racket revealed shocking trends. A woman had even used her minor son to add credibility the business. The 14-year-old was not sent to school. When the woman was caught, her daughter came to the police station. She told the police that her mother and brother were forced into this business by a financial crunch. She pleaded with the police officers to let go of her brother at least.
Another tragic incident was reported from Kottayam. Someone got hold of a school girl’s photo in uniform and posted it on a porn site with a “for sale” tag. The girl is on the verge of a mental breakdown after coming to know of it.
Online perversion affects children in multiple levels. A brother and sister are undergoing counselling due the shock they received after their father’s friend morphed their mother’s picture and posted it on Facebook. The girl has gone into depression while the boy refuses to go to school.
Irreparable damage
When two families fought each other over a piece of land, a man in one family resorted to shaming tactics to get even with the other camp. He got hold of a picture of a woman from the other family and morphed it with a dirty picture and posted in on Facebook. The young mother who became his victim complained to the Cheranelloor police. The offender was summoned and chided by the police, who got him to remove it from the page. The damage, however, was done. The photos kept in circulation, reminding the woman of the insult on a daily basis. Unable to bear the humiliation, she committed suicide.
Harassment comes in any guise. A woman who works in Infopark in Kochi was initially surprised to see the parish priest on Facebook. He was concerned about her absence in the church last Sunday. The priest told her it was his habit to check with all members of the parish. The priest sounded convincing and familiar with her family background. Gradually, messages about Bible stories and parables turned into twisted versions of Song of Solomon. The women did not cover her displeasure but the man on the other side of the chat stepped up his preaching with hardcore porn.
The woman informed her husband and they went to see the priest in person. The poor priest did not even have a Facebook id. He complained to the police. A member of the parish was held for creating a fake id in the name of the priest to get access to women.
Online impersonation can destroy lives and relations, as seen in the case of a lecturer in an engineering college in central Travancore. The 30-year-old teacher was popular among students and colleagues. Her students sent friend requests to an id seen on Facebook in her name. And they were invited to chat after dark by the “teacher”. Girls were shocked to see their favourite teacher sending them obscene comments and requesting them to send her their nude photos.
After many girls had the same experience from the id, they complained to other teachers. The teacher started getting accusatory stares everywhere. That is, until the truth came tumbling out. A miscreant was later arrested for copying photos from the teacher’s real Facebook id and creating a fake one in her name. The teacher had lost all her self-respect by then.
(Reporting by Sandhya Grace, K Rekha, Remya Binoy, Gayathri Muraleedharan, Neetha Naveen, Gayathri Jayaraj, T S Divya, Anu Mary Jacob, Sreedevi Nambiar, K P Safeena, Juny Joseph, K Sreerekha, Ansu Anna Baby, Ria Joy, Linu Mol Chacko, Ninny Mary Baby and Shahala Kunjumuhammed)
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