Rage and horror took over the internet during the weekend in reaction to a despicable act by an open source website posting Muslim women’s names and images on an “auction” list targeting minorities.
In what Muslim women described as harassment and cyberbullying, a website called ‘sulli deals’ was created on platform Github, where Twitter handles and photos were posted without consent, allowing users to take their pick on the ‘deal of the day,’ International Business Times reported.
‘Sulli’ is an offensive used to refer to minority women. Github is an internet hosting service provider that is a subsidiary of Microsoft.
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The website, self-described as, “a community-driven open source project,” profiled mostly Indian Muslim women journalists, activists, in some cases students, artists, researchers, analysts and put them up on the website, ‘for auction.’
It all came to light when a Twitter user named “K” found out about the link of the website on the internet and spread the word about it.
The channel was taken down following complaints registered against the channel with the police.
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Harassments
Sania Ahmad, one of the women speaking actively against the ‘auctioning’ harassment, had been targeted in May as well as last year.
Many Muslims expressed fear and anger over the recent incidents.
Similar harassment of Muslim women had taken place in May this year around `Eid Al-Fitr, where men – led by a YouTube channel that ‘rated’ women – abused and stalked several women from India and Pakistan, mock-auctioning them off and issuing rape threats on social media.
GitHub spokesperson said in a statement to The Print, “GitHub has long-standing policies against content and conduct involving harassment, discrimination and inciting violence. We suspended user accounts following the investigation of reports of such activity, all of which violate our policies.”