Social Media Should Be Accountable for Women’s Safety in Cyberspace: IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

Union Minister for Information and Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday stated the in Rajya Sabha that it was important to make social media accountable to ensure that women were made safe everywhere, including cyberspace.

While giving a reply to BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi's question on the Bulli Bai app in Rajya Sabha, the Union Minister said, "It was important to make social media accountable. It was important and a commitment of his government to ensure that women were made safe everywhere including on the cyberspace."

The question Modi had asked was with regards to the auctioning of women on social media via various websites including the Bulli Bai app.

The Minister further elaborated that whenever the government spoke about bringing stronger laws for cyberspace and spoke about strengthening social media guidelines it faced a backlash from the opposition parties who termed it as an attempt to hamper freedom of expression and speech.

Auctioning of women from the Muslim community was an issue raised by Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi in a number of letters written to the IT minister following which action was taken by the police both in Mumbai and Delhi.

Bulli Bai app was put up on the GitHub software development platform which auctioned Muslim women by putting up their images.