Growing Cyber Harassment in Pakistan

Growing Cyber Harassment in Pakistan

Adil Ali   04 August

It is estimated that there are over 37.5 million 3G, 4G/LTE subscribers in Pakistan at the moment. This dramatic rise in the use of internet technology has virtually reduced the world to  a Global Village. Though there are some challenges in this new virtual space and one such challenge is the striking rise in cyber crimes across Pakistan.

Cyber Harassment is one such form of cyber crimes which is getting more common in our society.  In this regard, psychologists of Global Medical Services Rawalpindi (Mr. Adil Ali & Ms. Ruhma Shahid) took the initiative and did an awareness program on PTV World on August 1st, 2017.



CYBER HARASSMENT

Cyber Harassment is the use of Information and Communications Technology to harass, control, manipulate or habitually disparage a child, adult, business or group without a direct or implied threat of physical harm.  It is commonly understood as behavior that disturbs or upsets, and it is characteristically repetitive.

There are many different types of harassment over the internet, some of which are given below:

Cyber Bullying:
This  include mean text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles. Messages and images can be posted anonymously and distributed quickly to a very wide audience and can be difficult and sometimes impossible to trace the source or deleting inappropriate or harassing messages, texts, and pictures.

Cyber Stalking:
This includes the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual. It may include false accusations or attempts to defame the victim. It may also include monitoring, identity theft, threats, vandalism, solicitation for sex, or gathering information that may be used to threaten, embarrass or harass.

Spreading False Information about an Individual:
This includes sharing or posting false information about someone on social media that damages their reputation.

Hate speech:

This includes using abusive language, inappropriate comments based on religion, ethnicity or any other classification.

Leaking or publishing an individual’s personally identifiable information:
This includes publishing someone's identifiable information such name, date of birth, pictures or personal information such as medical conditions online.

Accessing and dissemination of private data without consent
This includes accessing someone's private information and sharing it online without their permission.

Hacking Electronic Devices / Accounts:
This includes hacking someone's electronic devices, email or social media accounts with intent to monitor their activities or to post something on their behalf without their knowledge.

PAKISTAN'S CYBER CRIME LAW
On 11/08/2016, National Assembly of Pakistan passed Cyber Crime Bill in Pakistan.  According to this new law, there are punishments for all kinds of cyber harassment:

Crimes	Punishments
Spreading False Information about an Individual	Up to 3 years in Prison or up to Rs. 1 Million in Fine or both
Making /  Spreading Explicit Images or Videos of an Individual	Up to 5 Years in Prison or up to Rs. 5 Million in Fine or both
Making / Spreading Explicit Images or Videos of Minor	Up to 7 Years in Prison or up to Rs. 5 Million in Fine or both
Cyber stalking	Up to 3 Years in Jail or Up to Rs. 1 Million in Fine or both
Cyber Stalking with a Minor	Up to 5 Years in Jail and up to Rs. 10 Million in Fine
Hacking Email / phone for Stalking	Up to 3 Years in Jail or Up to Rs. 1 Million in Fine or both
Making Videos/Pics and Distributing without Consent	Up to 3 Years in Jail or Up to Rs. 1 Million in Fine or both
Hate speech	Up to 7 Years in Prison or fine or both

Two days ago, on 02/08/2017, a man who blackmailed and harassed a girl through social networking website “Facebook” has been jailed for 14 months in prison along with a fine of fine of Rs 200,000.

WHAT MOTIVATES CYBER HARASSERS?
While discussing in a program World This Morning on PTV World (aired 1st Aug, 2017), Clinical Psychologist Mr. Adil Ali said that the freedom of privacy and personal anonymity that internet offers encourages many individuals to do things and say words that are generally not acceptable socially.  If there were no social norms, no rules, no regulations, no control, many of us would behave in the same way we do on the internet when we have the freedom of privacy.  Ms. Ruhma Shahid added that it is the persona that we wear that makes us civilized human beings.

HOW MAJORITY OF WOMEN REACT?
According to a study, 70% of Pakistani women afraid of posting their pictures online due to lack of safety. Cases of stolen Facebook profile pictures are routine and in some cases have forced women to completely stop using social media sites and they in fact get blamed from their families for doing it.

Not quite surprisingly, there is so much stigma around it that majority of women choose to stay quiet for the honor of their families and would refrain from seeking any kind of professional support.

CONSEQUENCES OF NOT GETTING HELP:
Not seeking help can effect the psychological well-being of victims.  According to Mr. Adil Ali, victims could develop different mental health issues including depression, anxiety and PTSD to name a few.

WHAT CAN VICTIMS DO:

Realize that its NOT your fault:
There should be no threat to family's honor if someone bullies you or harasses you online. You have the right to go online, create your profiles use all the social media websites.  Don't ever blame yourself.

Block the Harasser:
There are blocking options available to users on almost all websites and social media platforms.

Report to the platform:
Don't forget to share your bad experience with the platform you had it on.  For instance if you are on Facebook, report it to the Facebook authorities.

Seek Help from Local Authorities:
Report the incident to National Response Center for Cyber Crime by dialing the Cyber Rescue Help line at 9911.  Or call the recently launched Pakistan's first Cyber Harassment Hotline at 0800-39393.

Seek Psychological Help:
Its never easy to deal with such issues all alone.  Your family and social support network is going to be a huge help for you but its always good to see a psychologist, or counselor for help.  Psychologists or Counselors can help the victims in getting a psychologically safe environment to discuss their harassment and to take necessary steps for their safety.

CONTACT FOR SUPPORT:
If your are a victim of cyber harassment and need psychological support, feel free to contact Global Medical Services in Rawalpindi at (051) 4848934-36 or see any other psychologists in your area.

Punjab to Combat Women Harassment Through Technology

Punjab to Combat Women Harassment Through Technology

Adil Ali   16 December

Women will soon be able to use a smartphone application to report harassment along with their exact geographic location to the police.

An android application is being developed by the Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) in collaboration with the Punjab Commission on Status of Women to help report and combat harassment faced by women across the province.

Through the application, women can notify the Police Integrated Command, Control and Communication (PPIC3) officials about the kind of harassment they are facing along with their exact geographic location. The officials will then dispatch a team of first responders to immediately tackle the situation. The first responders of this application will be the Dophin Force, Police Response Unit and Police Stations Beat Officers.

Women’s harassment includes, but is not limited to domestic, workplace or public place harassment.

The application will be used for two purposes: to create awareness about harassment and to help victims of it. It will consist of two to three modes including a panic button for emergency situations. Phone calls generated from the application will be directed to the 15 helpline where a special desk has been designated to answers the calls. These operators have undergone special training to effectively deal with cases of various forms of harassment. “Definitions of what constitutes harassment and what does not will be built-into the application so apart from helping out the citizens, we can also educate them,” says Shamsher Haider, Deputy Chief System Integration at the PSCA. The punishments for these crimes are in sync with Federal and Provincial legislature.

However, while the application aims to make it easier for women to report harassers, the officials have not mentioned how the law enforcement agencies will be sensitized to ensure that female harassment cases are dealt with delicately and adequately. “We already have laws where women can report abuse and assault, but the process of filing that FIR, or even stepping into the police station, means preparing yourself for a character assassination first,” says Sadia Khatri, Founder of the women empowerment initiative “Girls at Dhabas”. When reports of harassment / assault do come in, the very officials dealing with the reports turn to the survivor (usually a woman) first, trying to find a reason to blame her for what she had no control over. It’s rare for authorities to focus their investigation on the aggressor — esp until media and activists make some noise.”

The application, being developed by Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) IT Department will be launched by the end of December, 2016.

H/T: Technology Review

Pakistan's first cyber harassment helpline launched today

Pakistan's first cyber harassment helpline launched today

Adil Ali   01 December

A digital rights organisation has launched Pakistan’s first cyber harassment helpline today.

The service can be reached at 0800-39393.

Digital Rights Foundation (DRF), a non-governmental organisation, is a research-based advocacy organisation focusing on information and communications technology (ICT) to support human rights, democracy and digital governance.

“DRF is launching Pakistan’s first Cyber Harassment Helpline, which will provide a free, safe, and confidential service to victims of online harassment,” the NGO said in a statement released on Friday.

The helpline will ensure provision of “legal advice, digital security support, psychological counselling and a referral system” to the victims of online harassment.

The soft launch of the helpline was held at DRF’s Hamara Internet – Ending Online Violence Against Women conference on November 28 in Islamabad.

How the Internet Has Changed Bullying

How the Internet Has Changed Bullying

Adil Ali   01 December

This summer, American Psychologist, the official journal of the American Psychological Association, released a special issue on the topic of bullying and victimization. Bullying is, presumably, as old as humanity, but research into it is relatively young: in 1997, when Susan Swearer, one of the issue’s two editors, first started studying the problem, she was one of the first researchers in the United States to do so. Back then, only four states had official statutes against bullying behavior, and the only existing longitudinal work had come out of Scandinavia, in the seventies. After Columbine, however, the landscape changed. The popular narrative at the time held that the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, had been bullied, and that idea—which has since been challenged—prompted a nationwide conversation about bullying, which researchers around the country began studying in earnest. This special issue marks one of the first attempts to systematically review what we’ve learned in the last two decades—and, especially, to explore whether and how the Internet has changed the bullying landscape. 

In some ways, bullying research has affirmed what we already know. Bullying is the result of an unequal power dynamic—the strong attacking the weak. It can happen in different ways: through physical violence, verbal abuse (in person or online), or the management of relationships (spreading rumors, humiliation, and exclusion). It is usually prolonged (most bullies are repeat offenders) and widespread (a bully targets multiple victims). Longitudinal work shows that bullies and victims can switch places: there is an entire category of bully-victims—people who are victims in one set of circumstances and perpetrators in another. Finally, emerging research demonstrates that bullying follows us throughout life. Workplace and professional bullying is just as common as childhood bullying; often, it’s just less obvious. (At work—one hopes—people don’t steal your bicycle or give you a wedgie.)

To date, no one has systematically studied how different bullying settings affect bullying behavior—whether bullying in the Northeast differs from bullying the Midwest, or whether bullying in certain cultures, neighborhoods, or professions comes with its own characteristics. What Swearer has noticed, however, in her nearly two decades of bullying research is a persistent—and seemingly fundamental—environmental distinction between urban and rural bullying. In urban and even mid-sized city environments, anonymity is possible. Even if you’re bullied in school, you can have a supportive friend group at your local pickup basketball game. And there are multiple schools and multiple neighborhoods, which means you can float from one to the other, leaving bullying behind you in the process.

By contrast, in rural settings, “There aren’t options,” Swearer said, when we spoke earlier this month. “It’s impossible to get away.” The next school may be a hundred miles distant, so you are stuck where you are. What’s more, everyone knows everyone. The problems of reporting a bully—or, if you are a bully, of becoming less of one—become much more intractable, because your reputation surrounds you, and behavioral patterns are harder to escape. “Your world becomes an isolated and small place,” Swearer says. Isolation itself, she points out, can lead to a sense of helplessness and lack of control—feelings that are associated with some of the worst, most persistent psychological problems in any population, including bullying.

In some ways, when it comes to bullying, the Internet has made the world more rural. Before the Internet, bullying ended when you withdrew from whatever environment you were in. But now, the bullying dynamic is harder to contain and harder to ignore. If you’re harassed on your Facebook page, all of your social circles know about it; as long as you have access to the network, a ceaseless stream of notifications leaves you vulnerable to victimhood. Bullying may not have become more prevalent—in fact, a recent review of international data suggests that its incidence has declined by as much as ten per cent around the world. But getting away from it has become more difficult.

The inescapability of “cyberbullying” has huge consequences not just for children but also for adults. While workplace bullying is still a new field of study, adults seem to experience bullying just as much as kids do. A 2012 study from the University of Nottingham and the University of Sheffield, in the U.K., found that eight out of ten of the three hundred and twenty adults surveyed across three different universities had been victims of cyberbullying in the last six months; about a quarter reported feeling humiliated or ignored, or being the subject of online gossip, at least once a week. The effects of adult bullying can be just as severe, if not more so, than those of childhood bullying. While students can go to their teachers if they’re being bullied, if you report your boss, you could be out of a job. And adult victims of cyberbullying tend to suffer higher levels of mental strain and lower job satisfaction than those subjected to more traditional forms of bullying. An undermining colleague can be put out of mind at the end of the day. But someone who persecutes you over e-mail, social networks, or anonymous comments is far more difficult to avoid and dismiss.

Many forms of adult bullying are uncomfortably close to the sorts of shaming behaviors outlined by Jon Ronson in his recent book, “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.” (Alexandra Schwartz wrote about Ronson’s book for this web site, earlier this year.) Ronson documents the rise of cyberbrigades which unite in virtual outrage, on Twitter, Reddit, or elsewhere online, to disparage someone’s words or behavior. Participants often feel that their abusive actions flow from justified outrage—but all bullies think that their behavior is justified. “We know from moral disengagement work that all bullies feel morally justified in their actions,” Swearer pointed out. Ask people why they bully, and they rarely say, “Because I can.” They say, “Because I need to.” Bullies believe they are teaching someone a lesson; they claim that their victims are, through their own actions or faults, asking for it, and that they need to be called out and corrected. “They say it’s retaliatory. ‘I just retaliated,’ “ Swearer said. “They build narratives of their behaviors.” Many of the bullies Swearer has dealt with don’t seem to have realized that what they did was bullying: they demonstrate “a lack of insight and self-awareness.” Instead, they see themselves as righteous crusaders.

In children, it’s possible to instill self-awareness about bullying through schoolwide interventions. Catherine Bradshaw, a psychologist and associate dean at the University of Virginia who studies bullying prevention, has found that the most effective approaches are multilayered and include training, behavior-modification guidelines, and systems for detailed data collection. (More, in other words, than a stray assembly or distributed book.) Unfortunately, the equivalent for adults can be hard to find. Many adult bullies hide behind the idea that bullying happens only among children. They conceive of themselves as adults who know better and are offering their hard-earned wisdom to others. The Internet makes that sort of certainty easier to attain: looking at their screens, adult bullies rarely see the impact of their words and actions. Instead, they comfortably bask in self-righteous glory. The U.K. study from 2012 found that online bystanders, too, are disengaged. Observing the actions of cyberbullies, they were less concerned than when they watched in-person bullying.

In short, the picture that’s emerged suggests that the Internet has made bullying both harder to escape and harder to identify. It has also, perhaps, made bullies out of some of us who would otherwise not be. We are immersed in an online world in which consequences often go unseen—and that has made it easier to deceive ourselves about what we are doing. The first step to preventing bullying among adults, therefore, might be simple: introspection.

Courtesy: New Yorker