Despite the strenuous efforts made by the competent authorities in the Kingdom to reduce the repercussions of the malicious use of social media on social peace, the rapid development of digital technology has enabled hackers of personal accounts to harm many users.

“Pirates and Victims” was the most prominent title of the thousands of cases registered by victims with the regular courts, requesting protection from cybercrimes, which between 2019-2023 amounted to about 17 thousand cases, resulting in about 23 thousand charges.

The case files revealed that the perpetrators of these crimes caused a lot of harm to the victims after they took advantage of the state of lawlessness on these platforms and used them to assassinate the character, violate human dignity, spread rumors and plunge people into a state of melancholy, until it reached the point of encouraging many to violate the law.

In the corridors of the courts, the Jordan News Agency (Petra) witnessed in the past few days a number of trial sessions between parties in the courts, and it became clear to it that the extent of harm and damage to a number of people due to electronic crimes is very large, as there is extortion, fraud, violation of private life and defamation, in addition to publishing Private photos and broadcasting fake and false news against others, not even children were spared.

Imprisonment for months and a fine were not enough for one of those affected after one of them was published

Pictures of him, slandered him, slandered him, and caused the marital bond to be corrupted, so he demanded that legal restrictions on such crimes become greater, because there is a difference between freedom of expression and committing crimes against others and society.

The numbers of electronic crimes at the Judicial Council indicate that the number of charges in cybercrime cases between 2019-2023 amounted to 22,759 and the number of defendants, with the elimination of repetition for one person in the same case and keeping other cases 21,654.

Petra returned to the Anti-Cybercrime Unit of the Public Security Directorate to confirm that the number of cybercrime cases increased sixfold over the course of 8 years between 2015 and 2022, which is an indication that many people have taken advantage of the space allocated for posting on social media platforms. And they confused freedom of opinion and expression with committing mistakes that amount to crimes against others, and cause harm with which the imposition of the rule of law becomes enforceable, explaining that the number of these crimes increased from two thousand and 305 cases in 2015 to become 16 thousand and 27 cases in 2022.

Jordan is making efforts to spread an awareness discourse on the need to use technology in the service of man and not to fragment society and threaten its social peace. The Ministry of Culture has launched awareness campaigns on media education, spreading awareness of cybercrime, and ethical and professional dealing with publishing and receiving content, all with the aim of reaching human protection from the dangers of technology.

The Cybercrime Unit received a large number of people after they resorted to it to protect them from abusive acts that amounted to child abuse via the Internet, hate speech, inciting racial strife, fraud, and promoting immoral and professional content.

By reviewing and monitoring the work of the Cybercrime Unit, it was found that 1,285 cases of electronic extortion, 3,769 cases of defamation and contempt were registered through social media and electronic applications during the year 2022, 1,000 data theft cases, 3,466 online threat cases, and 2,115 hacking cases. electronic.

The Cybercrime Unit continues its specialized technical and investigative efforts to address this type of crime, in addition to educating citizens of their right to resort to the judiciary, in light of the wide spread of technology, digital solutions, smart phone applications, and the expansion of the use of social networking sites, which encouraged victims of this type of crime to file legal complaints. And the increase in the rates of crimes registered with the unit.

The Cybercrime Unit continues its educational and educational campaigns on cybercrime and its dangers in light of the widespread use of social networking sites, which facilitated the occurrence of a number of issues affecting societal peace, such as child abuse cases, which amounted to 133 cases, and issues related to spreading hate speech and provoking strife. Which amounted to about 113 cases, including cases where the arrest of the perpetrators of strife in society was announced.

During the monitoring of (Petra), the data of the Cybercrime Unit showed modern criminal methods, including digital sorcery, sexual exploitation through communication sites, and theft of electronic wallets.

This data indicates that two thousand and 118 electronic fraud cases were registered during the year 2022, and one thousand and 285 electronic blackmail cases, and the number of defamation, libel and contempt cases reached 3 thousand and 769, and threatening cases amounted to 3 thousand and 466 cases, and two thousand and 115 cases of penetration.

The Cybercrime Unit deals optimally with all cybercrime cases that come to it through technical tracking, including cross-border cases such as electronic fraud, or account theft, in coordination with the international police “Interpol” and the Arab and International Police Department, to identify criminals and address countries. to take legal action against them.

The unit continuously sends daily warnings to all users of social networking sites against using electronic means of communication to offend others. It also warns against the consequences of filling in or sending any personal information to unreliable pages, and not to deal with fake links that aim to hack and steal personal accounts.

The warning messages of the Anti-Cybercrime Unit include asking families to monitor children when using smartphones or computers, and not to leave them vulnerable to abuse or bullying through communication sites, applications, or electronic games that may carry psychological and mental dangers to them.

-(Petra)