DCW summons Twitter India, Delhi Police over child pornography tweets and rape videos

New Delhi, Sep 20: Delhi Commission for Women has taken suo moto cognizance of tweets depicting child pornography and rape videos of women while issuing summons to the Twitter India Policy Head and has also shared the list of objectionable pictures and videos with Delhi Police as well as Twitter.

Swati Maliwal, Chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women has also shared on her personal account several screenshots of the objectionable content which showcases videos and photographs of sexual acts involving children and women.

"Shockingly, some of these videos even depicted rape with children and women while they were asleep! Some of the Twitter accounts engaging in these criminal acts appear to be running a racket wherein they seek money for providing pornographic and rape videos of children from other users of the social media platform," IANS quoted the DCW in a press briefing.

The Delhi Commission for Women issued summons to Delhi Police seeking an FIR in the matter while recommending that the children and women in the child pornographic and rape videos clips be identified and assisted, according to a report published by the news agency.

The list of objectionable pictures and videos has been shared with Delhi Police and Twitter.

"I am shocked with the kind of rape and child pornographic videos available freely on Twitter. The nauseating material needs to be immediately removed from Twitter and FIR should be registered by Delhi Police in the matter. Systems must be developed so that all such videos are immediately deleted and the perpetrators reported to the law enforcement agencies. Twitter must be held accountable for this filthy and objectionable content being available and even sold on its platform," said DCW chief Swati Maliwal.

Twitter has been asked for an explanation as to why such tweets have neither been deleted nor reported, the DCW said. Also, it has sought the data such as the number of tweets depicting child pornography and rape identified, deleted, and reported by Twitter in the past four years.

In addition to it, the Commission has sought the SOPs related to deleting and reporting such content being followed by Twitter.