NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — The recent suicide of a 21-year-old woman from Salem district in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu is likely to result in a legal battle between the Indian state and the social networking site Facebook.
On June 23, Salem police received a complaint from the father of the 21-year-old woman that someone had uploaded a morphed nude picture of his daughter to Facebook. He requested that the police ask Facebook to remove the picture from the site and help them nab the culprit.
Facebook's response came too late; the woman committed suicide due to the social stigma she experienced from the faked naked picture of her.
Salem police are holding Facebook responsible for the woman's death. Senior officials are now considering charging Facebook with abetment to suicide for their failure to remove the image.
If Facebook is found guilty, this will mark the first time the site will have been found complicit in prompting someone to take her own life. The site also faces a legal battle in Israel, where it has been accused of allowing members of Hamas to network and coordinate the murder of several Americans.
India has seen several cases of social media related deaths since the networks became popular. India already holds the dubious distinction having highest number of selfie-related deaths.
