Maneka Gandhi said the ministry will fund the training of analysts so that they can judge what qualifies as pornographic material. (Express Photo by Prem Nath Pandey/File)
WOMEN AND Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi has announced that the government will develop an online Central Reporting Mechanism dedicated for complaints relating to cybercrime against women and children. The portal, hosted by the Ministry of Home Affairs, will flag off all kinds of images related to child pornography, rape/gang-rape imagery, revenge porn, and any sexually abusive material.
The decision was taken following a meeting chaired by Maneka on Tuesday. “I have suggested to representatives from Twitter that they should have a list of words such as rape, bitch, whore or similarly offensive words that are violent in nature,” said Maneka adding that the micro-blogging site would have to devise a way to filter out such words depending on the context in which such words are being used instead of a blanket ban.
Maneka said the ministry will fund the training of analysts so that they can judge what qualifies as pornographic material.
Ministry officials said that the MHA has established a sub-project under Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children which is being funded under Nirbhaya. As of now, it would function in response to complaints but in future the plan would be to use technology which can on its own identify and remove such content.
The officials added that at present the process goes through police who report the matter to the cyber cell which in turn flags it the concerned union government departments. “The intent of having a dedicated portal hosted by the MHA is to accelerate the procedure so that the matter is resolved within 24 hours. The idea is to escalate content so that it can be blocked and removed as well as to start early prosecution,” the official added.