Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has faulted social networking platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, for refusing to take down incendiary and manipulated content despite being reported. Such posts have led to several innocent people, especially children, being victimised.
He was speaking after inaugurating Koottu, a State-level programme initiated by the Kerala Police to spread awareness on cyber safety among children at a function at the Government Higher Secondary School for Girls, Cotton Hill, on Tuesday.
Advocating steps to regulate social media, Mr. Vijayan criticised the apathetic response to repeated calls to block falsehoods. Lamenting the lack of mechanism to discard malicious content on the social media, he said a scenario that necessitated escalation of complaints to the level of the Interpol for taking down online content was unacceptable.
Emphasising the need to transform Kerala into a digitally literate State, the Chief Minister called for sensitising youngsters, who were often targeted by cybercriminals. “Lured into various traps by fraudsters, many children have been driven to extreme ends, including suicide. Youngsters must be educated to remain cautious against such lurking dangers,” Mr. Vijayan said.
The Koottu programme is being implemented by the Cyberdome and the Counter Child Sexual Exploitation Centre of the Kerala Police in association with non-governmental organisation Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Childline, Meta (Facebook) and other organisations.
BBA founder and Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, whose video address was played on the occasion, called for close coordination between various agencies and stakeholders in making Kerala a child-friendly State. Creating awareness using technology in addressing the problem of child exploitation held immense promise.
BBA chief executive officer Rajni Sekhri Sibal said Internet usage had seen a rise of 40% to 100% during the pandemic. She added nearly 85 million images of child abuse were reported by the U.S.-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2021.
State Police Chief Anil Kant, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau Director Manoj Abraham, and Meta (Facebook) Head of Trust and Safety Vijay Pamarathi were among those who participated.
