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House mortgage to Madhuri Dixit, Maneka’s anti-troll helpline on a roll
NEW DELHI: The #I Am Trolled Help for women, started by women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi to tackle online bullying, stalking and abuse, has drawn
NEW DELHI: The #I Am Trolled Help for women, started by women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi to tackle online bullying, stalking and abuse, has drawn many complaints that are hilarious and unconnected to the helpline created for the purpose.
“Seeking help on my home mortgage case in UK and demanding action against my husband,” says one complaint. Another pleads, “Maneka ji, please ensure that people do not unnecessarily bother Madhuri Dixit with nasty comments. She is a good actress.”
The helpline, along with a special cyber cell, was started on July 6. Of the 200 complaints that have landed at mwcd@gov.in so far, the cell has filtered about 30 actionable ones and managed to get two Twitter accounts blocked. “Most of the actionable complaints involve online stalking and indecent behaviour. For instance, a girl has written how after she accepted a friend request from a man on Facebook, he has bombarded her page with pornographic pictures. She had sent screenshots of the page. We have forwarded the complaint to FB and also told the girl to lodge a police complaint,” said one of the staffers manning the helpline.
The ministry also follows up the complaints with police.
Dealing with ‘serious complaints’ is the easy part of the job for the two-member staff. “We follow the standard operating procedure given to us. Once we filter a serious complaint, we forward it to Twitter. Depending on the nature of complaint, Twitter decides to block or suspend the account,” said the staffer.
But complaints like the one from Dixit’s fan leave the team foxed. The complainant wants the minister to ensure that the star is not harassed. “On a given day, we receive 25-30 complaints that range from outright ridiculous to sundry ones seeking help on a relationship gone bad or some domestic violence issue,” said the second staffer. “We receive a lot of complaints about domestic violence, which we forward to the ministry’s cell that handles such cases.”
