A New Avenue of Crime in Bangladesh : TikTok as a Weapon of Violence Against Women

Now days, the number of smartphone and social media users in Bangladesh have been growing exponentially. It has got boosted during the Covid-19 lockdown. At the same time, with many more people using cyberspace for various purposes leading to a rise in crimes relating to social media as well. Even, the involvement of some social media with crimes like violence against women is am-plifying. This particular study focuses on how some social media especially TikTok, Facebook, In-stagram and YouTube providing a platform as a way to exercise violence against women. A content analysis of the articles about different incidents related to aforementioned social media platforms published in renowned and trustworthy news media of Bangladesh namely The Daily Prothom Alo, The Daily Star, Bangladesh Pratidin, Dhaka Tribune and The Business Standard was undertaken in this study. From September, 2020 to September, 2022; 30 cases have been identified from 270 news-media contents and it is revealed from the analysis of the cases that women were subjected to vio-lence more via the platform of TikTok compare to the other social media. The study expected to aware the concerned authority regarding to control cyber-spaces like social media to diminish the misuse of these platforms and reduce violence against women in the country