100 Muslim women auctioned on Bulli Bai app in India 

Occurred: January 2022

Over 100 high-profile Muslim women were 'auctioned' online in India, drawing intense criticism from politicians, rights advocates and others.

A derogatory term that refers to Muslim women, Bulli Bai in this instance referred to an app that displayed the names and doctored images of influential Muslim women. The images images were obtained without consent from the womens' social media profiles and Hindus were invited to participate in a virtual 'auction' with the intention of humiliating them.

According to police investigating the case, the creators of the app identified as 'Trads' ('Traditionalists'), who promote genocide against minorities.

Open source software development platform Github came under fire for hosting Bulli Bai. The platform also hosted Sulli Deals, a near identical app that had run for weeks mid-2021 before being taken down. Owned since 2018 by Microsoft, Github is no stranger to controversy. Amongst other things, the platform hosts libraries of code enabling people to create deepfakes, including for malicious and nefarious purposes.

A number of individuals were later arrested in connection with Bulli Bai and Sulli Deals.

The incident raised concerns about the nature and need to manage online and offline religious hatred and gender discrimination in India. It also raised questions questions about the willingness and ability of Github and Microsoft to police their platform.  

Operator: Microsoft/Github
Developer: 
Country: India
Sector: Media/entertainment/sports/arts
Purpose: Moderate content
Technology: Content moderation system
Issue: Accuracy/reliability; Ethics/values; Safety; Bias/discrimination - religion
Transparency: Governance; Privacy

Page info
Type: Incident
Published: January 2022
Last updated: February 2022