Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice from the Cy­ber Crime and So­cial Me­dia Unit are urg­ing so­cial me­dia users to be mind­ful of the con­tent they post and share, as they may face crim­i­nal charges for ha­rass­ment and bul­ly­ing.

The warn­ing comes as the TTPS in­ves­ti­gates sev­er­al posts on so­cial me­dia ac­counts which fea­tured nude pho­tos of young girls.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the TTPS urged par­ents to reg­u­late their chil­dren’s so­cial me­dia ac­tiv­i­ty and con­tact the po­lice if their child’s pho­tos or videos are fea­tured in ac­counts which have been cre­at­ed on In­sta­gram and Tik­Tok.

The ac­counts, ti­tled, ‘Pret­ty Pipers’, al­so tar­get­ed sev­er­al so­cial in­flu­encers, ac­cus­ing some girls of promis­cu­ity and spread­ing sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted dis­eases.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, an of­fi­cer in the Cy­ber Crime Unit said they re­ceived sev­er­al re­ports on the posts and warned users that such ac­tiv­i­ty could qual­i­fy as ha­rass­ment.

The of­fi­cer said the ac­counts’ cre­ators could face le­gal ac­tion from the per­sons whose im­ages were fea­tured in the posts, as they were defam­a­to­ry in na­ture, but said crim­i­nal charges were al­so like­ly.

“We have seen the con­tent shared and we are con­tin­u­ing our in­ves­ti­ga­tions from these ac­counts. On the polic­ing side, some of these posts can qual­i­fy as ha­rass­ment un­der the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act and al­so mis­use of an elec­tron­ic de­vice. We take these things very se­ri­ous­ly and will be pur­su­ing it,” the of­fi­cer said.

The of­fi­cer said in pre­vi­ous cas­es, pho­tos of young women were dig­i­tal­ly im­posed on naked im­ages and warned that such ac­tiv­i­ty could cause dis­tress to users.

He not­ed such ac­tiv­i­ties could al­so po­ten­tial­ly push the girls fea­tured to self-harm.

How­ev­er, he said cer­tain charges would re­quire guid­ance from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).