Feminist researcher Sanjukta Basu on protecting women’s online space and identity
In a training manual released as part of a project by Centre for Media Studies (CMS) and UNESCO, Sanjukta Basu delves into the aspects of gender trolling and its impact on women's online space and identity.
Sanjukta Basu believes she’s making the most of her life when she’s online—expressing her ideas, politics, stories of triumph and heartbreak. In fact, there is little of her life she hasn’t shared on the internet—starting from how she navigated a devastating break-up in the early 2000s right up to now, when her award-winning digital activism and political commentary have made her a person of authority on how to tap into the endless expanses of the online world. And more importantly, why it needs to become safer and more democratic for women.
After two decades of using the internet for work and expression, Basu, a Delhi-based feminist researcher, journalist, and gender consultant, has joined hands with Centre for Media Studies (CMS) and UNESCO to offer the country a training manual titled ‘Promoting Online Safety of Women Journalists in India'.
Basu, who has authored the manual, delves into the important aspects that constitute gender trolling and their impact on women’s online space and identity, the legal frameworks available to them, the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, and training tools and activities—all backed with case studies.
“The manual is meant mainly for trainers who may be engaging with other women journalists, and emerging journalists and students to whom safety is an important component of working in the digital world,” says Basu.
The manual defines trolling and the history of cyber hate—the kind the internet enables alongside free speech, the reasons behind this violence, and who the stakeholders who are supposed to make the internet safer for women are.
“Specific platforms like X and Facebook are stakeholders, the government is a stakeholder, and so are media organisations,” says Basu.
Working on women’s online safety
The tipping point that led Basu to explore these nuances of online safety and the impact of gendered hate came when she discovered that most media organisations did not have a plan or policy on what to do if one of their employees became a victim of online trolling.
Basu’s study, titled ‘Finding the ‘self’ and place in the world through internet and the backlash: An Auto Ethnographic Study of Gender Trolling on Twitter’, found that most of the trolling that women faced online did not fall under any legal purview.
Sanjukta Basu
Basu’s manual looks at how journalists are trolled by groups from both sides of the political spectrum, often translating to physical violence, as was the case with Patricia Mukhim, editor of The Shillong Times, who was attacked by two bike borne men at her house close to five months after she received death threats on social media. She says the risks are higher for regional and rural journalists, as they often live in the same locality as trollers do, and can be easily identified at their homes and workplaces.
She points out that trolling of women online takes forms of sexual insults and body shaming; violation of privacy by posting information such as their phone number, residential address, etc; cyber stalking; voyeurism, defamation, criminal intimidation, and impersonation.
The manual also quotes Ritu Kapur, Founder, The Quint, experiencing online and offline harassment, wherein she talks about how trolling feels almost the same as sexual harassment faced in the workplace or on the street. “We get the same feeling of revulsion and nauseating fear, and are forced to either quit the space or take to self-censorship, which stifles our freedom of speech,” says Kapur.
In her research, Basu takes inspiration from the methodology of Australian author and academic expert Emma A Jane (who reviewed 30 years of literature on cyber hate), on misogyny, gender, and technology-facilitated violence. Basu specifically adopts two suggestions made by her—one, to document (by taking screenshots of) specific examples of trolling; even those that are violent, gory, and graphic; and two, to document first-hand experiences of women facing cyber hate.
“I see the internet as a place where public opinion and mobilisation are born, and it is therefore important that it becomes inclusive and safe for women—to be simple observers, participants or leaders,” says Basu.
She adds that unless women are able to access the public space, that is the internet, they will be denied their own existential and political awakening.
“It is important for them to freely access the internet to understand who they are and what they want for themselves, and I believe in this despite the digital gender divide,” she says.
Lessons from life
Basu started blogging about her personal struggles and conflicts at the break of the millennium when the internet had just started opening up. The blog was a close second to her diary musings, only this time, they were open to the world.
“I started blogging two decades ago when it was almost impossible for me as a woman to navigate the male-dominated publishing industry, and when women’s personal experiences neither amounted to full-fledged stories, nor were they deemed relevant to public opinion,” says Basu.
“But whether it comes to livelihood, secularism, or any crucial subject of development, a woman’s lived experiences are what make public opinion rounded. But they still don't find a place,” she says.
Basu has been relentlessly bullied and body-shamed on the internet for her views. Her face has been distorted, her photographs morphed.
“Calling someone ugly or stupid is considered no more than light banter or humour in the digital sphere. I have been called Surpanakha, my face has been photoshopped to make my eyes bulge out of my teeth. This kind of violence finds no space or definition in the community guidelines of any social media,” says Basu.
How to fight back
Basu believes women should keep in mind the laws related to defamation, sedition, hate speech, those against provoking enmity between two communities, obscenity and other media laws that are applicable to print, electronic and digital platforms.
“In addition to traditional media laws, journalists’ activities on social media are further governed by The Information Technology Act, so it helps to have a basic understanding of these.”
Even as every social media platform’s policies and features are inconsistent and inadequate to resist this pervasive trend, Basu raises awareness about a few features that can be used by women netizens, such as filter notifications on X; deactivating facial recognition on Facebook, and using quality filters to receive notifications only from select accounts on X.
As someone to whom the internet has given work, friends, romance, and catharsis, Basu believes her life’s mission lies in opening up these possibilities to all women.
“Everything I have made out of life has been given to me by the written and spoken words I put out online,” says Basu. “My work is dedicated to women who seek the same promise of this world but don’t have the emotional or social wherewithal to withstand its backlash.”
Edited by Megha Reddy