Obscenity on social media discussed; govt. says 562 cases booked

The Legislative Council on Monday discussed the issue of growing obscenity and nudity on social media even as the State government claimed that it had taken several steps that included registration of as many as 562 cases under various laws during the last five years.

Raising the issue during Question Hour, Congress member P.R. Ramesh voiced concern over the dissemination of obscene, semi-nude and nude visual media content on social media without any restrictions and sought to know the action taken by the government.

In response, Minister for Home Araga Jnanendra agreed that the dissemination of obscenity and nudity on social media was bearing an adverse impact and pointed out that the government had booked cases against the accused under Indian Penal Code, Information Technology Act and Intermediary Rules 2011 and 2022 during the last five years.

While 21 cases were booked during 2018, 51 cases were booked during 2019. Subsequently, 130 cases were booked during 2020 while 175 and 185 were booked during 2021 and 2022, respectively, he said.

Apart from tracing the persons posting such obscene and nude visuals and booking cases against them, the government had also taken necessary steps to contact the managers of social media websites to seek removal of the objectionable content.

Grievance cell

Mr. Jnanendra also said there is a grievance cell in each district and town for lodging complaints against obscene, nude, semi-nude, and anti-social posts.

He said the Centre had set up the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP) for checking cyber crime. Out of the 80,379 complaints registered on NCCRP from Karnataka till December 14, 2022, 53,229 were under process, 14,960 were closed, 901 were rejected, 5,734 were pending, 2,028 complaints were withdrawn, five were reopened, 2,378 were classified as non-cognizable cases and no action had been taken with regard to 256 cases. However, Mr. Jnanendra pointed out that FIR had been registered in respect of 528 cases in the regard.

Mr. Jnanendra said the government was committed to act against both obscenity in social media and cyber crime for which police officials from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) are routinely sent to the National Forensic Sciences University in Ahmedabad for training. He claimed that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had approved one such Forensic Sciences University for Bengaluru, which will help the law enforcing agencies in the State.

He said the government had taken up an awareness campaign against cyber crime on various media and asking the public to contact the emergency number 112 for police to take immediate action.

He said it was now possible to freeze the money fraudulently drawn from the bank account of victims of a cyber crime if a complaint is made within the “golden hour” of two hours. During the last one year, a total of ₹70 crore had been frozen by the law enforcing agencies when complaints were given soon after the cyber crime had taken place, he said.

To another question from T.A. Sharavana, Mr. Jnanendra said the government had provided training to 3,657 police officials and personnel, public prosecutors and other officials at the Center for Cyber Crime Investigation and Digital Forensic Training and Research Centre set up at CID.