Digvijaya files FIR against FB, Twitter, YouTube

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has registered a criminal complaint against social networking giants-Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and four other such sites for uploading hate messages and offensive content against him.

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has registered a criminal complaint against social networking giants-Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and four other such sites for uploading hate messages and offensive content against him.

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Singh had filed a criminal complaint with the Cyber Cell of Economics Offences Wing on August 16, 2011 and the FIR was registered on September 29, 2011 under Information Technology Act. If charged, the Act provides for a punishment of maximum three years.

Rohit Kochhar counsel for Singh has lodged the case against seven social networking sites and 23 users, who posted several offensive pictures and hate messages against Singh. "It (offensive comments) caused grave injury to his reputation, goodwill and image of Congress Party of which Singh is the general secretary," said the FIR, a copy of which is available with HT.

"Much of this content (offensive web pages and wall posts) has been posted through various websites and medium of intermediaries including but not limited to Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Orkut, MSN and others," the FIR said.

The complaint further said that over the last few weeks, several known and unknown persons have been posting hate mails, pictures and other disparaging and defamatory content against him.

Seeking strict action against the websites, Singh said such activity on the web had caused severe damage and injury to his goodwill.

The complaint said police investigations will reveal the true identities of these 23 accused, who had dented his political image.

Despite several efforts by HT, Facebook and YouTube did not comment on the issue.