Abstract
Digital platforms have witnessed unprecedented transformation over the years and now become a necessity for people to interact and share information. Gone are the days of simply connecting over the phone; they are now connected through various social media sites, forums on the internet, blogs, and instant messaging services. This connectivity has the advantage of enabling people to be in regular communication and exchange of information, but it also has its share of new social issues, including one of the most hidden and damaging — cyber harassment. In general, Cyber Harassment can be defined as the dissemination of false, hurtful and malicious information on the Web regarding a person or a group of persons. It’s a type of cyberbullying that can cause deep psychological, emotional and reputational damage to those who suffer from it.
1. Introduction
The ease with which communication methodology is carried on digitally, coupled with the many new opportunities for damage to reputation, harm, abuse and harassment have been created by its use, in ways not previously possible, but user-friendly. Amongst the threats that are starting to crop up, Cyber Harassment is one of the most harmful and hurtful forms of cyber abuse. Cyber harassment is understood to be the dissemination of misleading and harmful information about a person through electronic channels and continues to be a sophisticated weapon under the age of women – those that can be used to persecute and silence them. Added to this are issues with the victims’ ability to find remedies, or that held responsible the perpetrators, complicating the picture even more, compounded by the society, the law, and some technological factors.
This is a problem especially of women who are proactive in their social, political and professional lives. There are multiple reasons for such actions, not only to bring degradation of a woman’s reputation, but also psychological trauma, instilling fear and destruction of credibility – both in the private space and the public space. A lot of women feel the effects of such malicious online accusations in the real world, in their families, on the job market and more. Cyber defamation may also take a number of forms ranging from posting images of the individual with an altered face, to the dissemination of rumours and fabricated imagery or videos of other people impersonating the victims. Creating and sharing defamatory content with regards women in India would be one of the biggest challenges that cyber defamation would face in this country. Content that goes viral normally takes only a few seconds by social media such as Facebook, Twitter(Now X), insta-gram, You Tube or messaging services like WhatsApp. Viral communication is a great way to ensure that a single, negative message can spread to thousands, if not millions, of people, and it’s often difficult to remove the message when you put it there. This is different from the other types of defamation (print or spoken defamatory language) which may be limited by geography or time. The content negatively disseminated in the internet typically circulates without being known and will still continue to pollute the image of the person in question long after it has become forgotten.
In India, an individual who is defamed can be considered the victim’s legal responsibility as the victim has propagated the said information and conducted active internet activities which served to “invite” the harassment. This attitude scares victims and incentivises perpetrators with no fear of opposing action or consequences. A majority of victims do not inform of what happens to them in the act to other families or the communities, and family and community pressure may destroy their opportunities for marriage. If women do report, they are likely turned down by the court or the police.
2. Research Methodology
The research takes a multi-dimensional approach, using quantitative, qualitative methods and includes a critical look at the legal regime, regarding cyber harassment and defamation against women in India. The study is formulated to explore the psychological, social and legal implication by such defamation on the victims with emphasis on the time frame between 2015 and 2026 and is designed to find out problems that the accuser or convicted person encounters to achieve justice and suggest solution to the problems.
The research uses quantifications as the core of the research related to the phenomenon involved in the research, in this case, cyber defamation targeting women in India. As more and more life begins to take place online and communities and societies have become more dependent on social media to connect, express themselves and professionally network, online space has become vital in which gender-based violence occurs in multifaceted and sometimes harmful ways, including the defamation of others.
This research is based on providing a critical and focused perspective of the experience, effects and the law’s reaction to cyber defamation amongst women in India. 2015 is also an important year in the legal environment and Supreme Court of India in the famous case of Shreya Singhal vs Union of India (UOI) has set aside Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Following this judgment, there has been an increased awareness for cybercrime, digital rights and a feeling of a weakness in legal mechanisms, which gave impetus to this research.
The main purpose of the qualitative part is to explore cyber defamation incidents of women in different regions of India (urban, semi-urban and rural) to explain the differences in their use and access to the Internet, digital literacy, socio-economic conditions and socio-cultural norms. Views of legal experts (including solicitors, judges and legal academics specialists in cyber law and women’s rights) will be sought through interviews on the existing legal clauses and how these are being used.
Different law enforcement agencies, including police officials and cybercrime analyst are also discussed and their recommended practices will help us to understand the challenges in investigations of these kinds of cases and their perspective of how best to respond to such cases. While the geographical jurisdiction is restricted to the geographical jurisdiction of the Republic of India, the space of cyberspace is without borders, and it is true that the matter of cross-border jurisdiction is relevant for implementation of the cyber laws. For the overall approach to study, this study is interdisciplinary which involves departments such as law, gender studies, criminology, sociology and information technology. It will aim to inform policy reform, contribute to the academic discussion and will offer policy recommendations supported by empirical evidence for which it will seek to engage the stakeholders.
3. Concept of Harassment Against women
The reliance of this study on publicly reported incidences of cyber defamation is indeed a significant limitation of the study. Research indicates that there is high under-reporting of cybercrime cases, especially against women in India. Cultural factors are often deterrent for victims to file a complaint, including factors of shame, fear of social rejection, victim-blaming, and lack of trust for law enforcement. There are also obvious impediments to reporting, including privacy issues, lack of knowledge of reporting processes, and limited availability of cybercrime cells in rural areas. This results in the extent and nature of the cyberdefamation which women in the country actually experience being not fully represented in the data being analysed.
4. Legal Framework in India
Defamation under Indian law is considered not only to be a civil wrong (tort) but also a crime, primarily under Section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Defamation defined as :
“Anyone who by words, either spoken or alleged to have been spoken, or in any writing, or by any sign or visible representation, makes or publishes any imputation about any person with the intention of hurting, or having reason to believe that he intends to hurt, the reputation of that person, is deemed to have defamed the person.”
Section 356 is the one which defines defamation as per the IPC (Indian penal code), which is any person who makes or publishes an imputation concerning any person with the intention of causing a harm to his or her reputation is guilty of defamation.
In India, the protection of reputation is a fundamental right which is closely linked with the right to dignity and privacy in the Indian constitution, Article 21. It also is taken into account the rights to freedom of speech (article 19 (1) (a)) and reasonable restrictions for the sake of the reputation.
In order to be legal, defamation has to have several elements:
Defamatory Statement: Must be false and hurt the reputation of the person. In general, the truth is an absolute defense and if a statement is true, even if hurtful, it is not defamatory in Indian law.
Identification: The defamatory statement must identify the plaintiff – it must be clear or implied in context that it is referring to the plaintiff.
The statement needs to be published to at least one third party other than the defamed party. This means anything that is published or commented upon, sent via email, messages, or blog, and/or videos online.
Intent or Negligence: If the publisher intended to harm the person’s reputation or was reckless about the truthfulness of the statement. It doesn’t matter if something is done maliciously as that adds to your liability, it does matter if you are negligent in checking the facts is enough.
Harm: There must have been real harm to the victim’s reputation or position in the community. Psychological distress and social ostracization are often forms of harm in cyber defamation.
The amount of digital platforms and features continues to increase, and cyber harassment cases require specific abilities to establish publication, intent, identification and harm, as well as technical expertise to delete inappropriate content and/or identify the content on such platforms.
5. Defamation in recent times
The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people are interacting, communicating and accessing information all over the world. Although digital platforms have brought a degree of unprecedented connectivity, expression and empowerment, they have also created new types of crime. Of these, cybercrimes against women have become a very disturbing trend. These crimes are leveraging the reach, speed and anonymity of the internet and disproportionately affect women, in fact they are part of the societal trends of gender inequality and discrimination.
As Internet connectivity and smart phone use has rapidly grown, especially in developing countries, so have cyber-crimes against women increased. India is an example. As per National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the incidents of cyber crime against women have increased from less than 500 incidents in 2010 to more than 3,000 incidents in 2022. These offenses include cyber defamation, stalking, online harassment or sending or posting obscene material, identity theft and unauthorized disclosure of material.
Cyber defamation and cyber harassment is not a gender issue. Instead, they tend to perpetuate and reinforce current patriarchy and social structures. A woman’s reputation is tied closely to the reputation of her family, the community she lives in and future opportunities, like marriage or job prospects, in many societies, especially those with strong traditional values.
The attacks on a woman’s reputation in the virtual world don’t only take place in the virtual world, but in the real world as well. Not only can defamatory content lead to social ostracism, but it can also have psychological effects and even lead to physical violence – such as the spread of false accusations of immorality, doctored images or malicious rumors. Internet issues and permanence will amplify these harms as defamatory content can be quickly and indefinitely disseminated to a wide audience.
Targeted social and groups of women activists, journalists, politicians and the professionals are particularly targeted. Cyber defamation serves as one of their means to silence their voice and to intimidate them and to maintain traditional power structures. Women can be attacked regularly in an organised manner on the internet and the purpose of these attacks is to damage their credibility and their legitimacy.In Internet attacks, they may attack them, sometimes in concert, to undermine their trustworthiness and the credibility of the Internet as a medium.
Digital platforms have evolved and transformed quickly and the way people communicate, connect and access information has changed, and are now key spaces for social interaction, news and public discussion. But such sites are also the breeding ground for cyber defamation of women. The ability to produce and disseminate defamatory content quickly and easily through social media, messaging applications and public forums, and sometimes even to magnify the impact and reach, leads to further damage.
Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok have become hubs for public communication and engagement. These platforms offer a variety of tools such as tagging, commenting, sharing, and live streaming, which allows for the quick and easy spread of information. At the same time, this connectivity has enabled everyone to discuss and communicate, but it’s also created a space for dangers – particularly for women who are disproportionately targeted with defamatory and abusive material.
Coordinated harassment campaigns are carried out against women public figures, celebrities, activists and journalists, and this harassment is referred to as “brigading”. In these campaigns, several accounts, many of which include automated bots, inundate social media streams with defamatory messages, slurs and fake stories so as to drown out positive content and to intimidate the person. Such mass attacks not only harm the reputation of individual users, but also hinder women’s involvement in digital public life.
6. Recent Case Study
1. Online character Assassination of women activist
She was the target of a social-media blackout against her by certain prominent female activists for social justice and women’s rights using the platform as a tool for their smears. A well known women political activist and social justice activist was the target of all-out defamatory campaign online. Widespread allegations of corruption, moral impropriety and misconduct were made on Twitter and Facebook about her and this was proof. These claims were backed by large trolling groups with thousands of accounts (many of which were automatic) commenting and sharing her posts in order to smother her legitimate voice and writings.
The activist also had her personal details doxed, like her home address, and phone number that was published online. She began to get harassing calls and threatening messages and had to forgo some public commemorative events temporarily without wanting to, to stay safe.
This case is an example of the political exploitation of cyber defamation, and in this case cyber defamation was used as a means of targeting women who defy the power structures of society, or those outside of ‘the norm. Goal of attacks was to delegitimate her activism, to scare her supporters off, and to set an example of what not to do in public discussion. However, she complained to the police and the site moderation team, who were somewhat apathetic in her experience and weren’t very quick to respond. Now, when she has complained to both the law enforcement officers and the platforms, she says she felt a victim of ‘failing to get any reaction from the platforms and any action from law enforcement.’ She’s referring to institutional problems in protections for activists online.
7. Government efforts to safeguard women from Defamation and Cyber Harassment.
Though more awareness has been raised on issues of cyber defamation, cyber harassment, disproportionate impact on women, there are still a lot of systemic issues, which make the prevention and intervention much harder and difficult and effective redressal mechanism are lacking to a good extent. These are the legal, institutional, technological and societal ones
7.2 Reporting and Help-seeking behaviours
The Indian government has created a website called National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCP), (https://www.cybercrime.gov.in), which is intended to be used to make reports of cyber crimes. India’s laws are not sufficiently prepared to tackle cyber defamation allegations that are targeted at women.However, there is a lack of substantive response by Indian laws to the slew of gendered threats regarding cyber defamation. Their scope is limited to the scope of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Defamation under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Sections 499 and 500 which cannot cover gender based abuse on-line. But, there have been a number of academic reviews (ResearchGate) that indicate that these laws do not specifically include explicitly thematic terms and/or taking into account specific contexts in which violations are likely to be seen as criminalization of Internet-based activities such as non-consensual image sharing or gender-based hate speech.
Moreover, parties are required to be compliant with IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 who mandates removal of illegal content, but there is poor implementation and platforms are non-uniform. Victims are frequently left to sort out the confusing and complicated legal landscape, all by themselves.
The confidentiality and support aspects will be discussed when reporting:
Cyber defamation complaints may not be filed because of a social stigma and emotional suffering which usually accompanies such incidents and complaints, for women. In response to this some police departments have used a women’s section of their Public Information Office, or have enclosed a “Females” who are assigned sensitive cases only and give special care to them with discretion and empathy. Moreover, anonymous complaints will be facilitated online for victims reporting a complaint without the risk of retaliation, and while keeping victim anonymity. The integrated helplines with counselors and legal advisors offer immediate psychological help and guidance in the reporting procedure, besides these. The ‘one-stop’ service should help the victim to speak up while also assisting them with emotional and legal help from the outset.
7.3 Awareness Campaigns
For the investigation of cyber-defamation case against Women, there is need for efficient reporting procedure and streamlined procedure to register FIR. They tackle the obstacles in the way – the provision of technology, institutional reform, and victim support – delivering opportunities that are accessible and trusted for women, so they are able to act in their own interests and seek protection during the digital age. The Govt. is conducting different awareness programmes in various media like advertisement etc. to raise awareness of the women regarding their security and safety, but still there are a lot of loopholes.
7.4 Content guidelines and policies are set by communities.
Social media sites such as Facebook (Meta), Twitter (formerly known as X), Instagram, Snapchat and others have adopted community guidelines and social media policies that clearly prohibit defamatory content, harmful or abusive behaviour or harassment. However, for all these efforts, policy enforcement remains hindered due to the fact that defamation is both context dependent and culturally specific. If there is defamation in one’s commanded/cultural context, it may be allowed in another jurisdiction/culture where universal rules are applied. In addition, many of the platforms apply vague terminology such as “harassment” and “hate speech” and sometimes lack the subtleties of the definition of defamation.
7.5 Automated Content Detection and Moderation
AI and machine learning capabilities such as natural language processing (NLP), image recognition and pattern analysis can automatically identify defamatory content. These tools can:
- File flagging on content that might be harmful to students for review.
- Identify manipulated images and videos as manipulated or fake.
- Knowledgable harassment methods can be tracked using systems.
However, human intelligence systems are not infallible; they can give a false negative or a false positive if they lack context and don’t get the nuances in the culture. Furthermore, it is possible of being censored and not dealt with in the same way when it comes to the differing views of the marginalised groups.
Conclusion
A fight against defamation of women in the cyber space is a symbol of the struggle for 21st century gender justice. It appeals to people of goodwill, for action, courage, and creativity of all citizens, civil society, legal advisor, technologists and policy makers. A ‘Women in Power? Women Online?’ is not possible in India without an integrated and intersectional approach to create a digital eco-system where women survive and thrive as a parallel and equally important community of citizens.
The intersections of the issue of cyber defamation and the demand for a multi-layered response to that issue based on the intersections of caste, class, sexuality, religion and disability in relation to women’s experience online is also highlighted in this reflection. Any policy and/or program that does not consider these interrelated elements can also have the potential of excluding high-risk populations.
Therefore, inclusion is all important in developing Digital Spaces for women’s overall flourishing. Including diversity in those who make policies, design technology, law enforcement and judiciary. It also includes the investment in community-based support, access to digital learning opportunities that is easily available and by empowering marginalised groups.
As we deal with this problematic terrain, we also broaden our imaginations of what it means to promote communication spaces online that reflect, value and protect the dignity, empowerment and fundamental rights of all individuals. OK, the digital revolution can be a revolution of equality–if we summon our vision and resolve to meet it face-to-face.
References
- – I.L.E.. (2024). Cybercrime Against Women in India: A Critical Analysis of Current Situations. ILE Research.
- Women and Child Development Ministry (WCD). (2024). Guidelines for online safety of women and girls. WCD Advisory Circular No. 23.
- Cyber Crime Awareness Society. (2024). Cybercrime against women in India: A public awareness handbook. CCAS India.
- Hindustan Times. (2025). Women Victims of Online Abuse Struggle to Get Legal Recourse. HT Digital.
- Rajya Sabha Secretariat. (2024). Report on the status of cyber laws protecting women in India. Parliamentary Committee Report No. 178.
- T.O.I. (2025). Delhi HIGH COURT Closes Defamation Suit Filed by Om Birla’s Daughter. TIMES OF INDIA March 2025.
AUTHOR : YASHONANDINI CHAUHAN , II SEMESTER , AMITY LAW SCHOOL, AMITY UNIVERSITY MADHYA PRADESH GWALIOR