MHA told to hold meet with tech giants on rape videos

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 11

As child pornography and rape videos continue to be circulated in cyber space, the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to resume its meetings with social media platforms, such as Google, WhatsApp and Facebook, to curb the menace.

The direction came after Advocate Aparna Bhat — representing NGO ‘Prajwala’ — submitted that the Ministry of Home Affairs had not convened the meeting of the stakeholders since December, 2018 even as the problem continued.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde asked the MHA to convene the meeting even as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said no order was needed to be passed to this effect as the MHA would be doing it.

Earlier, MHA had suggested that the intermediaries should deploy trusted flaggers to identify and delete objectionable content. It had also favoured setting up of a 24×7 mechanism to promptly deal with requests from law enforcement agencies for removal of unlawful contents.

Taking suo motu cognisance of a letter to the then CJI HL Dattu alleging circulation of two rape videos, the top court had started hearing the matter as a PIL.

Bhat said the intermediaries and the NGO could not agree on the ways to stop circulation of rape or other such pornographic materials. The NGO maintained that circulation of such content can be stopped at the outset, but intermediaries said action can be taken after these materials were brought to their notice.

“If an action to stop circulation of a rape video is taken after 36 hours then by that time it becomes viral,” Bhat said, adding that the issue of child pornography falls under POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) where mandatory reporting is needed.