The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has opened a channel allowing people to complain against offensive and vulgar messages received on WhatsApp, a senior government official said.
“If anyone is receiving abusive/offensive/death threats/ vulgar WhatsApp messages,
please send screenshots of the message along with the mobile numbers at ccaddn-dot@nic.in,” telecom department’s controller of communications Ashish Joshi said in a tweet. “We will take it up with the telecom operators and police heads for necessary action,” he added.
please send screenshots of the message along with the mobile numbers at ccaddn-dot@nic.in,” telecom department’s controller of communications Ashish Joshi said in a tweet. “We will take it up with the telecom operators and police heads for necessary action,” he added.
The development comes in light of several journalists receiving abusive messages on WhatsApp. Following complaints by public figures, the DoT, on Tuesday, shot off a missive to telecom operators asking them to take immediate action against their subscribers sending such messages given that the licencing conditions of the service providers prohibited carriage of objectionable, obscene or unauthorized content in any form on the network.
The Centre had also suggested telecom operators to open a dedicated call centre or helpline to receive complaints against such messages given that the onus is also on the operators to ensure that their networks are not used for abusive messages.
