Indian court orders 22 websites to remove offensive content

A court in Delhi on Saturday ordered 22 Internet companies, including Google and Facebook, to remove certain "anti-religious" and "anti-social" content, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

India has been concerned recently about online content that it considers objectionable, with the country's Minister for Communications and IT, Kapil Sibal, calling on Internet companies to develop a framework to ensure that such content does not appear online. The government's critics nevertheless hold that it wants to censor online content critical of India's politicians.

Sibal was at the center of a controversy before this month afterwards newspaper reports said that he had asked Internet companies to pre-filter objectionable content previously it was posted online. Executives of two Internet companies confirmed, on condition of anonymity, that Sibal had in actual fact made the demand.

The minister

The minister but subsequently denied in television interviews that he had asked for pre-filtering of content, which he said would have been a "foolish" proposal. Sibal said he was talking to Internet companies to push for a mechanism to remove offensive content afterwards it is posted. Some of the Internet companies were allowing content that would fail to live up to the laws that they are enforcing in their own country by their own community standards, he told one TV channel.

India's Information Innovation Act requires intermediaries like Internet service providers to remove content in other words found objectionable within a period of 36 hours of being notified of the content. Intermediaries are as well required to warn users against posting or uploading a variety of objectionable content in their user agreements and other rules and regulations.

Very often demands by the government for removal of content have gone unheeded by the Internet companies, and the companies have as well declined to provide information on who has posted the content, Sibal said.

The order of the Delhi court on Saturday nevertheless requires the Internet companies to remove the content considered objectionable until disposal of the suit, Santosh Pandey, the lawyer for the prosecution, told a local TV channel in Delhi.

"We comply with valid court orders wherever possible, consistent with our long standing policy," Google said in an emailed statement on Saturday. "We're but to receive the details of this order and can't comment on this specific case." Other Internet companies were not available on the spur of the moment for comment on the Delhi court order.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general innovation breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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