Saturday, December 24, 2011

Court ordered to websites, delete derogatory content by Feb 06

An Indian court ordered websites on Saturday to remove derogatory contents by February 06.

According to reports, the court has also ordered 21 defendant companies to submit order of compliance by the same date. 

On Friday US companies Facebook, Google, Yahoo and other Internet firms, were ordered by a court to remove material considered religiously offensive.

This news of screening web content comes amidst recent controversy sparked off by Union Minister Kapil Sibal, who had urged Facebook, Twitter, Google and others to remove offensive material, unleashing a storm of criticism from internet users complaining of censorship.

A court in Delhi on Friday had issued summons to 19 companies to stand trial for offences relating to distributing obscene material to minors, after being shown images it said were offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians, a news agency said.

India has generally unrestricted access to the Internet for those of its 1.2 billion people who can afford it and are on the electrical and telephone grids.

So far only about a tenth of the population uses the Web, but with the number of connections growing fast in the religiously conservative society, concerns about the nature of web content are growing in some quarters, including senior government officials.

Another Delhi court earlier this week told the websites to remove photographs, videos or text which might hurt religious sentiments.

Despite rules to remove offensive content, India's internet access is largely free when compared with tight controls in fellow Asian economic powerhouse China. But in line with many other governments around the world, India has become increasingly nervous about the power of social media.

India has 100 million internet users, the third-largest user base behind China and the United States which is forecast to grow to 300 million users in the next three years.

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