Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad talks about the menace of child porn, revenge porn, and misuse of the internet. (File Photo)

Union Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad raised concerns over proliferation of child pornography on the internet and said that social platforms like YouTube is being abused for this purpose. Speaking at the India Digital Summit 2020 in New Delhi on Thursday, Prasad said, “Revenge porn is peeping in India and that platforms like YouTube are being abused. I have also talked to Sundar Pichai about this issue.”

Flagging child pornography as a serious issue, he said, “The way internet is abused for pornography, particularly child pornography, is a serious issue. I am a great supporter of freedom but there are social obligations.”

Prasad said that child pornography and revenge porn is a Parliamentary concern and a Parliament committee has passed recommendations to curb it, but the entire country needs to understand this issue. “The central government, state governments, and the state police are working together to stop this menace,” he said.

Talking about misinformation being spread on social media, Prasad asked, “How does it happen that on the same day, on the same issue, near the same geographical area, millions of messages are being replicated? “When we talked about it to WhatsApp, they restricted the forward limit to five users.”

Expressing his views on the positive and negative aspects of the internet and social media, Prasad said that while on one hand there is some great enlightening digital material out there but at the same time these public platforms are being used to propagate violence and communal tensions.

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“India is now emerging as big global power and there are forces which want to create hurdles. That’s their outlook, but you don’t allow your platform to be abused for that,” Prasad added.