Maneka holds meet with Facebook over cyber-safety of women & children

Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi met officials from Facebook on Monday to discuss the mechanism that can be put in place to ensure cyber-safety for women and children on the social media website and curb child pornography.

Maneka said the meeting was held amid a rise in misuse of cyber platforms by perpetrators to harass and abuse women and children for "voyeuristic pleasures".

"Taking into account how cyber platforms are increasingly being misused by perpetrators to harass & abuse women & children for voyeuristic pleasures, I held a meeting with Facebook officials headed by Antigone Davis and Ankhi Das, today," she tweeted.

"We discussed at length the mechanism that can be put in place to ensure cyber safety for Women and Children on Facebook and curb Child Pornography," she said in another tweet.

In August, Maneka had held a meeting with various stakeholders and proposed setting up of a global alliance for identifying and eliminating child sexual abuse material from the "dark Internet".

She discussed the various possibilities of making cyberspace safer for children with representatives from the UNICEF, online streaming service Netflix and the Family Online Safety Institute -- an NGO.