Online abuse went up during Covid-19, finds study

As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, most interactions – professional as well as personal – moved online and along with them, what also saw an uptick was the number of cases of women being harassed online. So much so, that a new entrant found its place in the dictionary — Zoom-bombing or Zoom-flashing. It means when people join online gatherings to post racist, sexist, pornographic, or anti-Semitic content to shock and disturb viewers.

A study of several cases and studies from across Asia conducted by experts at the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago has found that with increased time spent online during Covid-19, instances of gender-based violence facilitated by technology went up manyfold in India.

As part of the study, researchers screened over 2,000 articles, and then analysed 97 of them. 40 of these articles were based in India. The range of online abuse perpetrated online among several vulnerable groups included cyberbullying, cyberstalking, defamation, image-based abuse, sexual harassment, doxing, gender-trolling, and hacking.

“In India, increased concern over online violence during the pandemic is evidenced by increasing conversations around online GBV on Twitter, which nearly tripled during the 2020–2021 period of Covid-19-19 compared to before. In addition, authors found an uptick in searches for help-seeking behaviors related to technology-facilitated GBV in some regions during that same pandemic period, as compared to before the pandemic,” the study noted.

In addition to instances of Zoom-flashing, newer forms of online violence that found popularity were “shock content”, where videos that mix humour with violent acts against women was posted as Instagram reels and TikToks, the study said.

LGBTQI+ individuals and female sex workers also faced increasing online violence during Covid-19. For LGBTQI+ individuals, a higher incidence of violence came from family members due to increased surveillance of mobile phones.

“India saw more female sex workers moving toward mobile or home-based sex work, making them increasingly vulnerable to violence from clients taking screenshots of their work to later use for blackmail or non-consensual distribution of intimate images,” the study says.

Consequently, the grooming of several at-risk groups, such as children, teenagers, and young women, went up. The study also showed that users with limited digital skills are more likely to be women and girls. Children, too, are a high-risk group, as classes moved online. “ … (This) has led to increased exposure to cyberbullying, harmful content, and exploitation,” the report said.

Among the set of recommendations, the experts have asked India to come up with legislation to deal specifically with online gender-based violence, and assess and amend anti-obscenity and anti-pornography laws that actively harm survivors or restrict consensual sexual expression by laying out what is acceptable social behaviour.

Vidya Reddy of Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CPHCSA) said that India lacks intent to solve the problem.

“India certainly condemns child sex abuse material, but it has a long way to go in practice when it comes to government structures. In most child sex abuse cases, there’s always technology involved, but not always is it reflected when a case is filed. There is a need for greater understanding among investigative authorities about the intersection of technology and sexual violence,” says Reddy.

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