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Cyber Harassment: The Dark Side Of Internet





Cyber Harassment: The Dark Side Of Internet

Technology has revolutionised our life. We have access to information at our fingertips and can connect with people anywhere across the globe within a few seconds. Technological advancements have been largely beneficial for us but there is a flip side to it. The same technology that provides lightning-fast communication also paves the way for cyberbullies to commit crimes.  

Cyberbullying or harassment is carried out online. One of its forms is gathering private information to control or intimidate a victim. Richa Agrawal (name changed), a victim of cyber harassment, said the enemy is always one of your close mates who knows everything about you. “Two years back, I was a popular student who loved participating in all the extra-curricular activities in college. My life was going good until one day I received messages from an unknown number. To my shock, the person knew every small detail of my daily activities like where I go after college, whom I meet and about my family members. I was so scared that I wasn't able to focus on studies and exams. I was also reluctant to share this experience with my parents. This encouraged the stalker to harass me more,” Richa informed.

When the harassment became unbearable, she finally told her parents. She said, “It was obvious that the person knew me closely. I had a huge friend circle so it was difficult to figure out who was doing it. With the help of his contacts, my father finally tracked him down. To my surprise, he turned out to be one of my best friends. He admitted that he was harassing me out of jealously. He was let off with a warning but from that day, I developed trust issues. I am settled in life now but that incident still haunts me. I now have only formal acquaintances and no more friends.”

Richa thanked her parents for their support. She said parents should understand such situations but unfortunately, it rarely happens in the society. 

By stalking online, the offenders victimise a person. They send unsolicited messages, emails, comment publicly with forbidden words and contents. Sometimes, this harassment is done by multiple accounts. Hence, it is important to privatise accounts, lock personal information and accept requests from known accounts. 

Cyber experts worldwide advise online users against installing applications which are not verified and could steal your personal information resulting in identity theft. There have been reports of many shady organisations launching apps and links for the purpose of hacking. This is called cyber terrorism. Usually, access to such apps is coded in binary and decoded for misuse. The connectivity and location tracking can be done by our sim cards in which all official identification and documentation are registered. One should be careful and should not click on any such links and access apps. 

In the modern world, relationships have been digitised too. Dating apps are the new cool. Strangers often use this platform to harass users. Sadvita Panda (name changed), a student of Literature, said someone had created a fake account of her on a dating app by stealing her pictures from Instagram. This incident turned her life upside down for several days. "At around 11 in the night one day, a school friend sent me a screenshot which had a picture of me on a dating app and the location was T?dong, West Bengal. The person had used all my pictures to create a fake account. Later, I found out that one of my Instagram followers had done this. I was terrified to the core. I didn't want my mother to know about the incident as she belongs to a society which would first blame the girl for posting pictures on social media and even scold me for using Instagram. I removed most of my followers. But it was difficult to access the fake account since it was a dating app. I was going mad, hysterical and frustrated, crying the entire time, feeling helpless and unsafe. I was unsure if I would be able to get that account deleted. I tweeted about the entire incident and tagged the cybercrime cell and the support team of that dating app. The response wasn't satisfactory. But when I asked people to retweet my post, it started to get attention. After about 8-9 hours, the account was deleted.” 

Sadvita said she still doesn't know who created the fake account. “Is he/she still in my followers' list? Would the culprit repeat this act? There is always this danger lurking around and anyone can be a victim of this," she said and added that stringent laws should be formulated to check such harassment on social media sites and dating apps.

These virtual offences have real consequences in someone's life. Cyber harassment causes physical and emotional consequences in victims while the culprit often goes scot-free. Surprisingly, the laws are not stringent enough to deal with cybercrimes. In fact, online harassment is not even considered as a serious offence in many cases. The Government needs to understand the dark side of online abuse and formulate legislation to curb this menace.

(Note: Identities have been hidden to maintain confidentiality)

Author: Debamitra mishra

A journalist by profession and a fanatic of liberal arts, Debamitra is a reporter and carves her niche in human interest stories. An artist in solitude and wannabe writer.

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