Obscenity on social media discussed; govt. says 562 cases booked
The Legislative Council on Monday discussed the issue of increasing obscenity and nudity on social media, even as the state government claimed to have taken several steps that included registering as many as 562 cases under various laws during the last five years.
Congressman PR Ramesh raised the issue during the Question Hour and expressed his concern about the spread of obscene, semi-nude and nude visual media content on social media without any restrictions and sought to know the action of the government.
In response, Home Minister Araga Jnanendra agreed that the spread of obscenity and nudity on social media had a detrimental impact and pointed out that the government had filed cases against the accused under the Indian Penal Code, Information Technology Act and Intermediary Rules 2011 and 2022 during the last five years.
While 21 cases were discussed during 2018, 51 cases were discussed during 2019. After that, 130 cases were discussed during 2020, while 175 and 185 were discussed during 2021 and 2022 respectively, he said.
Apart from tracking down the persons posting such obscene and nude images and booking cases against them, the government has also taken necessary steps to contact the managers of social media sites to seek removal of the offending content.
Grievance cell
Mr. Jnanendra also said that there is a grievance cell in every district and town for filing complaints against obscene, nude, semi-nude and anti-social posts.
He said the Center has set up the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP) to check cyber crime. Out of the 80,379 complaints registered on NCCRP from Karnataka till 14 December 2022, 53,229 were under processing, 14,960 were closed, 901 were rejected, 5,734 were pending, 2,028 complaints were withdrawn, five were reopened, 378 were republished, 378 cases. and no action was taken in relation to 256 cases. Mr. However, Jnanendra pointed out that FIR has been registered in respect of 528 cases in this connection.
Mr. Jnanendra said the government is committed to taking action against both social media obscenity and cybercrime for which police officers from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) are regularly sent to the National Forensic Sciences University in Ahmedabad for training. He claimed that Union Home Minister Amit Shah has approved one such Forensic Sciences University for Bengaluru, which will help the law enforcement agencies in the state.
He said the government had taken up an awareness campaign against cybercrime on various media and asked the public to contact the emergency number 112 for the police to take immediate action.
He said it was now possible to freeze the money fraudulently withdrawn from the bank account of cybercrime victims if a complaint was made within the “golden hour” of two hours. During the last one year, a total of ₹70 crore was frozen by the law enforcement agencies when complaints were given soon after the cyber crime took place, he said.
On another question from TA Sharavana, Mr. Jnanendra said the government has provided training to 3,657 police officers and staff, public prosecutors and other officials at the Center for Cybercrime Investigation and Digital Forensic Training and Research Center set up at CID.
