SC notice to Twitter on PIL seeking laws to weed out divisive content | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: After Twitter was compelled to droop handles branded “objectionable” by the Union authorities, the Supreme Court on Friday sought the social media platform’s response to a PIL seeking a route to the federal government to body a authorized mechanism to weed out communal, casteist and divisive content freely circulated on the platform.
A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian didn’t require a lot persuasion to entertain the PIL filed by Vinit Goenka, a member of the governing council of the Centre for Railway Information Systems within the ministry of railways. The bench issued notices to the Centre and Twitter Communications Private Ltd, Mumbai.
Goenka referred to Articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and stated they imposed comparable restrictions on free speech as offered underneath Article 19(2) of the Indian Constitution, particularly safety of others’ status, nationwide safety, public order, well being and public morals. He stated Germany in 2017 enacted the Network Enforcement Act to cease hate speeches and ads with separatist agenda, seditious materials, communal, instigative and divisive messages and determined to penalise any social media platform discovered circulating banned content.
The petitioner stated, “In the absence of any law in India to deal with offensive and hate messages, platforms like Twitter are knowingly promoting such messages. Fake news is the root cause of many riots, including the recent riots in Delhi. Political parties and candidates use fake social media accounts for self-promotion and image building and to tarnish the image of opponents, especially during elections.”
“Terror groups like IS, al-Qaida and Indian Mujahideen use Twitter and other social media platforms to circulate their hate speeches without getting detected,” he stated. He added that pretend handles have been generally used for circulating divisive and communally disturbing messages. Making a direct assault on Twitter, the petitioner stated, “The special commissioner of police (intelligence), Delhi, has issued a statement that over 300 Twitter handles were generated from Pakistan during January 13 to 18 to organise the tractor rally in order to disrupt the Republic Day celebration. Respondent No.4 (Twitter) has not even cared to censor those handles which were the reason for creating unrest.”