One of the main problems in taking action against a troll is that no legal definition of cyber-bullying is provided in Indian laws…

When Shahana Nair Joshi, a young professional from Delhi, wrote a blog post titled ‘An Open Letter to a Delhi Boy’ last year, she was not prepared for the repercussions that followed. The post went viral overnight and received as many as 7,000 comments. Her blog post, which was a rant against the stereotypical Delhi man, became a topic of discussion on social networking sites, inviting with it a flurry of praise. But the fan following also brought with it an equal number of trolls (those who post inflammatory messages in an online community).

« Soon sexual insults, derogatory messages and inflammatory content became the norm, » says Joshi. « Then I started moderating the comments on my blog and went on to block trolls on Twitter, » says Joshi whose Twitter follower list jumped from 100 to 1,000 within a week. « One person even went to the extent of issuing a death threat to me over the phone, » she adds. « I decided to ignore the trolls as that is the best possible solution. »

Cases similar to Joshi’s are on the rise in cyber world. At a time when social networking sites are being asked to monitor and censor their content, bullying on the Internet is at an all time high. Trolls hide behind the anonymity that a social networking site provides to post derogatory comments and obscene remarks.

According to Supreme Court lawyer Pavan Duggal, harassment on social networking sites is emerging as one of the biggest problems in the online world. « Six out of 10 people aren’t aware of what constitutes a cyber crime. As a result they aren’t reported. Neither the victims nor the abusers know what is an offence, » says Duggal.

But even if a case of bullying on the Internet is reported, the law is somewhat fuzzy when it comes to bringing the offender to book. In India, social media come under a variety of civil and criminal laws. The Information Technology Act, 2000, tackles most cases related to cyber crimes. « However, we take recourse to not just the IT Act, 2000, and its amendments thereunder, but also to other legislation, such as the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Trade Marks Act, the Copyright Act, etc., to tackle cyber crimes in India, » says Gurpreet Singh, Internet law head, Amarjit and Associates, Delhi.

Full article available there : The Telegraph India

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