Even phone selfies turning into a nightmare

Technology is supreme over all. With its help, anything can be done precisely with little to no physical labour. The mobile phone, an invention of technology, was introduced for people to talk with others from afar. Over the years, the invention became an unavoidable part of human life. Communication, banking, cameras, health details and whatnot- mobile phones have become inseparable from human beings.

There is no going back. This is an era when not only the young but also the elderly rely on the smartphone to relieve boredom and make ends meet through blogs, vlogs, and reels. Beyond its good aspects, society is now facing the perils of the darker areas to which technology has access.

Cyber ​​frauds committed over the phone are becoming rampant in the state. The biggest tragedy of our time is that with the help of technology, a person's character, personality, honesty, and reputation can be destroyed. The recent photo-morphing crimes bring to light the little-discussed topic of cybercrimes and mental perversion affecting youths. Shockingly, students and young people are taking pictures of their classmates and teachers, morphing them into nude pictures, distributing them and selling them on pornographic sites. The police have arrested two undergraduate students in Ettumanoor and Kochi in the incident.

A similar incident was reported a few days ago at the Medical College in Thiruvananthapuram. Selfies are now a lifestyle practice, and friends often like hanging together and clicking photos. The strange and disturbing fact is that one of the friends can possibly be a criminal too. It does not require much knowledge to morph such pictures and turn them into pornographic pictures. If given the right prompt, AI tools will produce fake pictures that are more believable than the real pictures. People in pornographic groups will be ready to buy the same images. Some others simply do it for the fun of seeing their friends going through mental trauma. It requires some serious mental disorders to stoop to such a heinous act. The police found that the pictures of the female students of the college in Ernakulam were morphed and circulated in closed groups. Mental perversion and easy money have been adjudged as the motivating factors.

Legal action should be strengthened. Along with this, the public needs to be more vigilant. Students need to be constantly made aware in colleges about the misuse of technology. The police investigation has found that promotion groups and premium groups committed financial fraud in the Thrikkakara morphing case. Not only those who make this, but also those who pay money to watch it should face legal action.