SC issues notice to Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft

NEW DELHI: With instances of social media being used to circulate offensive material, including rape videos, coming to light, the Supreme Court sought response on Monday from Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft on why their platforms are hosting illegal activities.
A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit issued notice to the companies seeking a response by January 9 after the Centre said the court should direct service providers not to allow subscribers to circulate objectionable material on social networking sites.
Besides videos showing sexual assaults uploading of private clips without consent has become a source of harassment with the victims finding themselves at the recieving end of social stigma and often cyber abuse.
The court passed the order on a plea of Hyderabad-based NGO, Prajwala, seeking its direction to the service providers to take off an offensive video immediately after it is brought to their notice.
Contending that the apex court had earlier directed online search engines, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, to remove all illegal advertisements and content relating to sex selection and eventual abortion, the NGO’s counsel Aparna Bhat said similar orders are needed to prevent people from circulating offensive material.
“Service providers shall be mandated to report the video as soon as they come to know of any such video being posted out of their platform and shall take it off their site immediately,” she contended.
“They must also take preventive steps to ensure the videos do not get circulated. It is submitted that the ISPs shall have a grievance reporting mechanism on their website. Once reported, the said offensive image or post or video shall be indexed in a shared database and the same shall be taken down and the account shall be reported to the authorities concerned within a span of 36 hours,” she said.
Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh, appearing for the Centre, told the bench that government is considering making CBI a nodal agency to handle all cyber crime cases and was setting up a National Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (NCCC) for such incidents and national security issues in co-ordination with other agencies.
He said service providers should be directed to cooperate with government agencies in curbing the menace of cyber crime. The government had earlier told the court that it was difficult to identify people who uploaded sex videos through mobile phones and shared them through ‘Whats App. It had said culprits could be easily caught if such activities were done through computer but use of phones made detection tougher.
As reported cases of cyber crimes surged nearly 300 per cent between 2011 and 2014 in the country, the court is monitoring steps taken by Centre to handle such offences. The court favoured setting up of exclusive cyber cell to probe such cases.