Telegram teams identified for sharing illicit sexual content material had set their sights on Serbian rights group activist Stasa Ivkovic. In 2021, Ivkovic obtained nameless recommendation that these teams have been searching for intimate pictures of her and attempting to acquire her private particulars.Her social media accounts have been flooded with vulgar and insulting messages. This prompted Ivkovic to look into social media discussion groups in Serbia, the place revenge porn, baby pornography, and different unlawful content material are recurrently exchanged.”They discovered every part — my handle, who my mother and father are, and all my different private data,” Ivkovic, founding father of the Belgrade-based rights group Osnazene (or “Empowered Ladies”), instructed AFP.Ivkovic, alongside two colleagues from Osnazene, infiltrated quite a few such Telegram teams.In a report printed in June, Osnazene revealed that roughly 10,000 messages are despatched each day inside the teams they monitored in Serbia. One of many largest teams consists of as much as 70,000 members. Ivkovic famous that members typically use codes like “teen commerce” or “-18” to seek for baby pornography. “Male relations, largely sons, take photos of their moms and sisters after which ship them to those teams for score, sharing, and varied different functions,” she stated. Upskirting photos and different intrusive pictures are additionally prevalent. “Ladies are actually not protected wherever,” Ivkovic stated. In an identical case, a video of rape was shared in a single group, with the sufferer discovering its circulation solely after it had unfold throughout a number of chats. The video was later faraway from a pornographic web site.These revelations come up following the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France final month. Durov faces costs for failing to deal with extremist and unlawful content material on the platform.Serbia’s Commissioner for Safety of Equality has related the rise of such teams to “deep-rooted, conventional, patriarchal stereotypes about gender roles in households and communities, the place girls are seen because the property of males.”Regardless of the expansion of illicit teams, Serbian authorities have solely managed to close down 13 such teams, in line with native reviews.Activists like Ivkovic argue that authorities inaction solely worsens the issue. Serbia lacks particular legal guidelines addressing the sharing of unauthorised recordings and pornographic content material, together with revenge porn.Belgrade’s Autonomous Ladies’s Centre (AZC) has referred to as for harder legal guidelines and has gathered tens of 1000’s of signatures for a petition. AZC’s Vanja Macanovic warns that the influence on victims will be traumatising. “These movies and pictures stay on-line without end, and the victims reside in concern that somebody will see them once more, doubtlessly restarting the cycle of violence,” Macanovic stated.
