Surge in Cybercrimes: NCRB Data Highlights Concerns for Queer Community

New Delhi - The recently released NCRB data by the ministry states that cybercrime is on the rise in states and union territories of our nation. The report reveals that India has seen a 24.4% increase in the rate of cybercrimes. While there are options to know the breakdown of the data according to the gender binary, queer people do not have the opportunity.

Unfortunately, NCRB does not provide any specific data about the queer community, even though they are the ones facing a lot of cyber-attacks. Pranshu, a queer artist and influencer based in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, had put up a reel with them wearing a Sari. It quickly got viral, catching the attention of homophobic and transphobic individuals. The reel was flooded with negative comments, with most making fun of their “masculinity” and terming him as a “burden” to the world. Netizens felt it was easier to attack someone who was coming to terms with their identity than looking into themselves. Pranshu later committed suicide.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated situation. According to an anonymous queer social media user, reporting of such comments on Instagram does not work. He said, “I have reported many homophobic and hateful comments on Instagram, but not a single comment was deleted. There are accounts which make homophobic reels regularly, but they are never touched by Meta. How can they protect homophobes?” According to an online community called YesWeExist, Meta has not been taking any strong steps against such hate.

Ella D’ Verma, who was the first Runner Up in Miss Trans Queen India 2023, has been the recipient of a lot of online transphobic hate. It is not a difficult task to find violent comments on her social media post. Talking about the abuse she receives to the online community, she said, “I have had stories taken down for 'bullying and harassment' where I call people out; yet their hateful comments perfectly align with the platform values.”

Talking about Pranshu through a social media post, Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju, who is from the transgender community and an artist, asked, “#justiceforpranshu shows very few posts, because some apparently violate the community guidelines. There have been times I have reported profiles spewing absolute and pure hate with 60k+ followers personally to Meta folks we know. They do not get taken down. Are we happy now? A child is gone. Just like that. How many queer children do we lose?”

According to the report, “a total of 65,893 cases were registered under Cyber Crimes, showing an increase of 24.4 percent in registration over 2021 (52,974 cases). Crime rate under this category increased from 3.9 in 2021 to 4.8 in 2022." Further, the report states that "a total of 24,420 cases have been registered under Cyber Crimes, showing an increase of 42.7 percent over 2021 (17,115 cases). Cybercrime rate has increased from 15.0 in 2021 to 21.4 in 2022. Crime head-wise cases revealed that Computer Related Offences (section 66 of IT Act) (12,213 cases) formed the highest number of Cyber Crimes accounting for 50.0 percent during 2022."

In 2022, total 9,940 cases were reported, and the rate of filing chargesheets was 22.6 percent. Mumbai, the financial capital, had 4,724 cases during the same time, with a chargesheet rate of 16.6 percent. Hyderabad reported 4,436 cases, and the chargesheet rate was 25.4 percent. New Delhi had 685 cases in the same period, and the chargesheet rate was 89.3 percent. Online spaces become the only places where queer people can be themselves, away from societal pressure and family. It also needs to be understood that for queer people, it is very difficult to carry on legal cases against cyber crimes due to reasons such as the fear of getting outed to society and fear of shame from the police due to a lack of sensitivity.

In such cases, one will hope the particular media applications will take action so that they would not have to reach out for higher help. But that is not even the case. In November 2023, a person who used to work at Meta testified in front of a U.S. Senate group, claiming that the company behind Facebook and Instagram knew about problems like harassment affecting teenagers on its platforms but didn't take action to solve them.

The ex-employee, Arturo Bejar, worked on making sure Instagram users were doing well from 2019 to 2021. Before that, from 2009 to 2015, he was a director of engineering for Facebook's Protect and Care team. He specifically talked about Meta’s inability to keep a check on bullying and threats received by teens. In an email from 2021, Bejar informed Zuckerberg and other high-ranking executives about internal data that showed 51% of Instagram users had a negative or harmful experience on the platform in the last seven days. Within that group, 24.4% of kids aged 13-15 reported getting unwanted sexual advances.

This has a more negative psychological impact on the queer community. In India, there are laws centered around heterosexual people. So even if the guidelines of the applications are not able to protect them, heterosexual people can approach their families and authorities. Even though there is shame attached to it in a nation like ours, there are still a number of supportive laws. In the case of the queer community, the only hope is from these applications as not everyone has a supportive family structure. More than anything, there is no specific policy or sensitization to protect them, making them feel cornered.

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