Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi has brought to light a case of online abuse at its worst. She posted a screenshot of a post by a Twitter user that is so disgusting that it’s scary.
The tweet said Chaturvedi should be raped and brutally killed like Nirbhaya.
In the past as well, likes of actor Sruti Seth have faced abuse on social media, and Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar was also threatened with rape if she came to India.
In a piece for NDTV, Chaturvedi cited a survey by the Observer Research Foundation, which mentioned that out of 23,250 tweets under political trending topics, only 7.72% were by women and 46.15% were from men, as the remaining were from organisations or users with unspecified gender.
She wrote:
“Shri Arun Jaitley said it was near impossible to control the trolling. While I appreciate his honesty, I disagree with him saying it isn’t possible. If laws against trolling and cyber abuse were made more stringent (discarding the loopholes in Sec 66A ) and if the response because less red tape and more proactive, then maybe there could be a way to address this issue. So saying it’s not possible is a convenient escape route that he took.”
Chaturvedi tweeted that she has filed an FIR in the matter.