With WhatsApp and Facebook becoming a convenient platform for pedophiles and sexual offenders to park pornographic videos, the Supreme Court on Friday sought to know from the Centre whether the social media companies can be held accountable for failing to regulate such content.
The attention of the Court to this aspect was drawn by NGO Prajwala founder Sunitha Krishnan whose petition on banning of sex clips on internet is under consideration of the Court. Krishnan produced two news reports, one from Kerala and another from Mumbai showing separate instances where social media groups had provided a convenient spot for sharing offending clips showing sexual assault. The Kerala case involved a group of pedophiles who had an online group of 3000 members who shared videos of their sexual acts. Krishnan sought a direction from Court to Kerala Police to register a case against Facebook too. The Mumbai case, on the other hand, related to four juveniles who uploaded a video of their sexual assault on a young girl.
The bench of Justices Madan B lokur and UU lalit directed Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Maninder Singh to examine the petition. It said, “Please report on these two instances. Alacrity must come from the Government’s part to detect such crimes.” The ASG informed Court that a High Powered Committee constituted by Ministry of Information Technology has examined this aspect and submitted its report, a copy of which will be supplied to the Court by next date. He said that the Ministry of Home Affairs was in the process of compiling a Database of Sexual Offenders by e-linking of such cases. The matter will be heard next on January 8.