E-Paper
Supreme Court notices to Twitter, Centre on plea seeking mechanism to check fake news
The petition by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Vinit Goenka to regulate content on social media platforms has also sought a crackdown on “anti-India messages” sent through social media to provoke violence in the country.
The Supreme Court issued notices to the Centre and several social media platforms, including Twitter, on a plea seeking directions for devising a mechanism to check fake news and instigative messages being circulated via social media.
The petition by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Vinit Goenka to regulate content on social media platforms has also sought a crackdown on “anti-India and venomous messages” sent through social media aimed at provoking violence in various parts of the country.
The court has tagged Goenka's matter with a bunch of similar petitions already pending before the apex court.
The new petition comes at a time when the government and Twitter are at odds over 1,300 accounts or posts that were spreading ‘misinformation’ in connection with the farmers’ protest and the violence on January 26. The government has asked the microblogging site to take these down. Twitter, however, did not take action on some of the accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians to keep with their “principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression.”
On Thursday, minister for electronics and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad warned that social media companies will need to follow India’s laws or face strict action. He added that the government is working on new rules to make companies such as Twitter and Facebook more responsive to directions and accountable to Indian laws.
On Twitter’s ‘freedom of expression’ explanation, Prasad said the government was in the favour of freedom of speech and expression but against the abuse of social media platforms for spreading fake news and posts that can spread violence.
“We respect social media. We also respect criticism. But we will not tolerate the misuse of social media for fake news. Today, from here in Parliament, I politely remind the companies, whether it is Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or WhatsApp or anyone, they are free to work in India, do business, but they need to respect the Indian Constitution, they need to respect the Indian law,” he told the Rajya Sabha.
