The government asked social media companies to ensure that their platforms are not misused by elements against the country after it told Google and its video platform YouTube to remove video links that pertained to Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman.
Google complied immediately with the government directive, said Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thurssday.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had directed Google and YouTube to remove 11 specific video links stating that it has potential to incite public order and peace in the country.
Meity in a notice has also told Google to ensure similar videos are disabled and a compliance report shared with the ministry. The government invoke provisions under rule 9 of Section 69A of the IT Act to blocking of information in case of emergency.
“We comply with valid legal requests from authorities wherever possible, consistent with our longstanding policy and act quickly to remove such material,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement”.“Data on government requests to remove content from Google services is updated periodically in our transparency report.”
“We are appealing to social media companies. India is a democracy. We respect freedom of press and expression. We are an important centre for social media activities. In the light of the developments,,the platformsy should not be wily nilly exploited to weaken the morale of the country,” said Prasad. “We expect them to take care fof that”.
Leave a Reply