PETALING JAYA: Social activist Syed Azmi Alhabshi has urged netizens to take more care with their personal data online because of the actions of people in pornographic chat groups.
He said the chat group members had become more “daring” and had started to make direct contact with people whose photographs had been shared in the group.
“Previously, they would only share the pictures or videos of random women and children and post sexually explicit comments about the victims in the group.
“Now, they have started to reach out to the victims, and have been harassing them,” Syed Azmi told FMT.
A local pornographic group dubbed ‘V2K’ on the Telegram chat app was brought to media attention after one woman realised that her photos had been sent to the group, garnering unsolicited sexual remarks.
The victim then raised the issue on social media, leading to more women discovering that their photos had been shared in the group without their consent.
The victims claimed that besides pornographic content, the members also took screenshots of the women’s photos and personal information from their social media accounts.
The information would later be used by the group members to harrass the victims personally.
“They think it is okay to do that because they have seen other members do it or they have been challenged to do that. They do not think they are alone at this.
“The peer pressure and the environment are shaping their minds to think that nothing is wrong to contact the victims,” he said.
He said there might be young members in the group who just follow blindly. “Without knowledge, they don’t know the consequences of their actions.”
He said the public were also responsible for creating an environment for the sexual predators.
“Many people are taking this issue lightly and downplay the severity of it. Because of that, some people would actually think that it is okay to act the way these members acted.
“Stop normalising. What is wrong stays wrong.”
He also advised social media users to be more careful when releasing personal information to social media.
Asked if the related authorities such as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) should be more proactive, Syed answered: “Yes they can, but once they take down a post, other authorities such as police could no longer do investigations on the case.”
He said MCMC does not have the power to initiate investigations. “MCMC can only provide technical assistance for police to do the investigations.”
MCMC has said it had been alerted and had notified Telegram for further assessment and action. MCMC has also been working closely with the police and has escalated the issue to Interpol for their assistance.
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