Speaker Om Birla on Wednesday suggested a serious discussion in the Lok Sabha on the issues relating to the unbridled pornographic content in the social media as members drew attention towards its ever increasing trend besides that of fake news and sought the Government to penalise social media companies.
Members said the UAE and China have banned child porno sites and asked the Government whether it would do the same.
Maintaining that child pornography is a serious thing and must be banned, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Government blocked 9,000 sites. Many say adult pornography is “our right”, Prasad said, adding “revenge porno” is also in vogue.
On the suggestions to ban all the sites spreading porn and fake news, the Minister said India should not be compared with China or the Middle East, as “we are a democracy”.
While several MPs had, during question hour, expressed concern over unregulated spread of the social media which spewed fake news and pornography, the Speaker said the issue demands a serious half-an-hour discussion. Prasad promptly agreed to the suggestion saying the upper house had discussed the misuse of social media. The Modi Government had in its first term planned to go whole hog on banning porn sites but due to reasons like impracticality among others it stepped back.
Gaurav Gogoi (Congress) blamed Government for not regulating social media and cited the case of teenager Gopal Sharma who fired at Jamia university site saying he was streaming live but “your Ministers did not remove… it is illegal”. He sought to know whether Government would penalise social media companies.
At this, Prasad said the Government was working on the direction of the Supreme Court. “We are considering penalising,” the Minister said even while pointing that the Data Protection Bill is before the select committee.” As for the shooting incident near Jamia, he said the incident is under investigation. In a written reply, Prasad also said there is no proposal to link social media profiles of users with their Aadhaar numbers and asserted that steps are being taken to curb spreading of fake news and pornography through social media platforms.
His response was to a question on whether the government proposes to formulate any policy to link social media profile of users with their Aadhaar numbers. According to him, the Government has taken several steps to keep a check on the spread of fake news, pornographic and anti-national content via social media platforms.
Prasad said there has also been a rise in irresponsible comments in the social media.
