A silent war is on in the city.
Away from the public glare, the cybercrime wing is cracking down on obscene content going viral on social media platforms, having deleted more than 600 videos including those made by ‘PUBG’ Madhan, now arrested, on YouTube.
The law enforcers are taking no chances and in association with social media firms are acting quickly.
Based on complaints lodged by veteran comedian actors Senthil and Charlie, the fake Twitter accounts were suspended within half an hour.
In the case of videos uploaded by massaging parlours and tattoo centres, police deleted about 80 videos on YouTube in the past 10 days.
After the apprehension of Madhan from Dharmapuri on June 18, the cybercrime wing deleted more than 400 videos uploaded through his channels ‘Toxic Madan 18+’, ‘Madan’, ‘PUBG Madan girl fan’, and ‘Richie Gaming.’ It also removed about 120 videos made about cosmetic treatment and those with obscene content.
The cybercrime wing is to be soon strengthened with 50 more personnel with expertise in cyber laws and computer knowledge.
They will be assigned to the social media lab in the cybercrime unit where at least two dozen police personnel are already tracking various types of criminals.
Police also plan to acquire more sophisticated gadgets required to cope with the tech savvy offenders.
Every time police receive a complaint in this regard, they need to register a case and send a request to the respective social media firms to delete the obscene content.
In some cases, the firms may claim freedom of speech as a reason and refuse to comply, but that is a challenge the police have factored in and are working accordingly.
Police commissioner Shankar Jiwal said, “We have a good rapport with the social media firms.
They are taking immediate action based on our requests.
We are balancing freedom of speech and the derogatory content.” The police personnel in the wing are working round the clock to get obscene videos deleted, he said.
In the particular case of ‘PUBG’ Madhan, an official statement from the commissioner’s office has requested members of the common public to submit their complaints against Madhan to ‘dcpccb1@gmail.com’ and said that all details of the complainants will be kept confidential.
A cybercrime wing police officer said, “We are receiving about two dozen complaints online every day.
This has increased five-fold after the apprehension of ‘PUBG’ Madhan.”