In July, dozens of Indian Muslim women found their pictures displayed as “deals of the day” on an app that went by the name “Sulli Deals”. ...
In July, dozens of Indian Muslim women found their pictures displayed as “deals of the day” on an app that went by the name “Sulli Deals”. The app conducted mock auctions of these women to Hindu men.
“There was no real sale of any kind – the purpose of the app was just to degrade and humiliate,” reported BBC.
Such perverse use of social media for targeted harassment isn’t new.
This kind of harassment is also frequently witnessed on Twitter. There were accounts that took responsibility for “Sulli Deals”. There are also accounts that regularly share pornographic content targeting Indian Muslim women.
Most social media sites ban pornographic content but not Twitter. The micro-blogging website is more accepting of porn. Twitter policy states that users cannot post adult content in live video, profile, header or banner images created for lists. But pornography and other forms of consensually produced adult content can be posted within tweets “provided that this media is marked as sensitive”.
Despite this guideline, unmarked pornographic content flourishes on Twitter. While the platform is used by porn performers to build their brands, Twitter’s inability to distinguish acceptable adult content from non-consensual objectification is hurting India’s Muslim community.
A plethora of handles promoting pornographic content showcasing Muslim women as submissive to Hindu men thrives on...
