Religious groups seek action against social sites

The controversy regarding the monitoring of Internet content fails to die down. In the latest development, an inter-religious group on Thursday met Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal seeking strict action against the social networking websites and other Internet companies for putting up “anti-religious” content on the web that fuelled communal disharmony.

Quoting a Delhi court order restraining 22 social networking and Internet sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Google from webcasting any “anti-religious” or “anti-social” content, representatives from Muslim and Christian organisations besides some social organisations asked Mr. Sibal to take action against these Internet firms.

In their memorandum to the Minister, these organisations have urged the government to take “legal action (against these Internet companies) as early as possible…otherwise it may create communal disharmony and other kind of problems throughout the nation.”

Mr. Sibal assured the delegation that the government would consider appropriate action against companies that posted offensive and objectionable content.

In its order, the Court observed that “contents which are uploaded by some miscreants through these social media sites are highly unacceptable and are inflammatory and derogatory which cannot be accepted by any religion”.

The court's order came after hearing a petition filed by the former spokesperson of Darul-Ul Uloom and founder of FatwaOnline.org, Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi.

Reacting to the court's order, Google India said: “We believe that access to information is the foundation of a free society. Google Search helps spread knowledge, enabling people to find out about almost anything by typing a few words into a computer. And services like YouTube and Google+ help users to express themselves and share different points of view. Where content is illegal or breaks our terms of service, we will continue to remove it.”

Notably, in its meeting with senior Indian functionaries of social networking and Internet websites earlier this month, Mr. Sibal had pointed towards uploading of communally sensitive material and objectionable content against senior political leaders. However, these companies expressed helplessness on content removal and assured all help to the government in dealing with such people as per law.