Social media sites share govt’s view on inciting content
21 Aug 2012 7:24 AM IST
The external affairs minister S M Krishna discussed on Monday the issue of Pakistan-based hardline groups using social media networking sites to fan communal sentiments and scare among people from Northeast in India with the foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai.
Official sources said that the two discussed the matter and that the Ministry of External Affairs is awaiting the Ministry of Home Affair's full report on the matter before deciding the future course of action.
Meanwhile, social networking sites, like Facebook and YouTube, have informed the government that inflammatory contents uploaded on their pages originated from Pakistan. 'The initial response from international social networking sites indicates that such contents have been hosted from outside the country and to a large extent from a neighbouring country,' the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEIT) said in a statement.
The response of these web sites came after the government ordered a ban of more than 250 web pages, charging that morphed images and videos were uploaded displaying alleged atrocities on Muslims. The government also said that these led to the fear psychosis among the people of the Northeast and their mass exodus from different parts of the country.
However, one of the intermediary sites has conveyed to the government that uploaders of the inflammatory and hateful contents were outside the jurisdiction of the country, 'thereby implying that they are not obliged to take any constructive step to deal with it'. The DEIT said that most of the contents were taken from events 'unrelated to the incident occurred in Assam. Hosting of such morphed image and video led to a lot of inciting comments from users on the blogs...and circulation of hate SMSes'.
The DEIT said that proxy servers and virtual private network services which hide the user identity appear to have been used for uploading the content. The agencies are continuously monitoring hosting of such inflammatory and harmful content.
The DEIT said that on 17 August it had issued an advisory to all intermediaries, including national and international social networking sites, advising them to take necessary action to disable such inflammatory and hateful content hosted on their websites on priority basis.
Besides, it had called a meeting of the representatives of international social networking sites based in India and advised them to take all possible actions to disable such content immediately.
Official sources said that the two discussed the matter and that the Ministry of External Affairs is awaiting the Ministry of Home Affair's full report on the matter before deciding the future course of action.
Meanwhile, social networking sites, like Facebook and YouTube, have informed the government that inflammatory contents uploaded on their pages originated from Pakistan. 'The initial response from international social networking sites indicates that such contents have been hosted from outside the country and to a large extent from a neighbouring country,' the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEIT) said in a statement.
The response of these web sites came after the government ordered a ban of more than 250 web pages, charging that morphed images and videos were uploaded displaying alleged atrocities on Muslims. The government also said that these led to the fear psychosis among the people of the Northeast and their mass exodus from different parts of the country.
However, one of the intermediary sites has conveyed to the government that uploaders of the inflammatory and hateful contents were outside the jurisdiction of the country, 'thereby implying that they are not obliged to take any constructive step to deal with it'. The DEIT said that most of the contents were taken from events 'unrelated to the incident occurred in Assam. Hosting of such morphed image and video led to a lot of inciting comments from users on the blogs...and circulation of hate SMSes'.
The DEIT said that proxy servers and virtual private network services which hide the user identity appear to have been used for uploading the content. The agencies are continuously monitoring hosting of such inflammatory and harmful content.
The DEIT said that on 17 August it had issued an advisory to all intermediaries, including national and international social networking sites, advising them to take necessary action to disable such inflammatory and hateful content hosted on their websites on priority basis.
Besides, it had called a meeting of the representatives of international social networking sites based in India and advised them to take all possible actions to disable such content immediately.
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