DCW issues summonses to Twitter, Delhi Police over 'child pornography' videos

The Delhi Commission For Women DCW has issued summonses to Twitter and the city police over the alleged availability of child pornography videos on the microblogging websiteTwitter and the Delhi Police have been given time till September 26 to respond to the summonses There was no immediate reaction from the website and the policeThe Chandigarh University incident set me thinking and I asked my team to investigate We found videos of minor girls on Twitter in which they were seen being raped Some of the platforms were even selling these videos for Rs 20 to Rs 30 This is horrific DCW chief Swati Maliwal told reporters hereAlso read Canteen worker recorded my video in hostel bathroom IIT Bombay studentProtests rocked the Chandigarh University campus in Punjabs Mohali on Saturday night over allegations that objectionable videos of several female students were recorded by a hosteller following which Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann ordered a probeThe panel has summoned the Twitter India policy head and the Delhi Police over tweets depicting child pornography and rape of women and girlsThe commission took suo motu cognisance of several tweets with videos and photographs of sexual acts involving minorsAccording to the DCW most of the tweets showed naked children and many of those also depicted incidents of rape and other nonconsensual sexual activities with children and womenShockingly some of these videos even depicted rape with children and women while they were asleep Some of the Twitter accounts engaging in these criminal acts appear to be running a racket wherein they seek money for providing pornographic and rape videos of children from other users of the social media platform The commission has shared a list of such tweets with the Delhi Police and Twitter the panel saidIn the summons issued to Twitter the commission has said it is deeply distressed that such illegal acts involving sexual abuse of children and young women are being publicised through the websiteThe commission has summoned the Twitter official in order to ascertain the steps being taken by the website to prevent such content as well as the systems in place to immediately report the same to law enforcement agenciesThe DCW has also asked the platform to provide reasons as to why the tweets were neither deleted nor reported by itThe commission has also sought data regarding the number of such tweets presently available on Twitter Further it has sought the number of tweets depicting child pornography and rape identified deleted and reported by Twitter in the past four years the panel saidThe DCW has also asked Twitter about the standard operating procedure SOP related to deleting and reporting such content followed by the platform It has tried to ascertain whether artificial intelligence and machinelearning tools are used by Twitter to automatically identify and delete tweets depicting abuse against women and childrenIn the summons to the Delhi police the panel has sought an FIR in the matter It has recommended that the children and women visible in the pornographic and rape videos be identified and assistedThe Delhi Police has also been asked to provide the number of similar tweets reported by Twitter in the past and whether FIRs were registered in connection with those and the accused arrested The police have also been asked to inform about the steps taken by them to ensure that no such videos depicting child pornography or rape are present on TwitterThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever