Fresh fire at social networks
-The Telegraph
The Press Council chairman today joined the chorus for a leash on the social media, citing how a sleaze video featuring Congress MP Abhishek Singhvi had been uploaded on YouTube despite a court injunction.
Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju wrote to I&B minister Ambika Soni to raise a team of legal and technical experts to check “this menace” and, if necessary, frame a law to filter out “offensive material”.
Union minister Kapil Sibal and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had in the recent past demanded curbs on social networking websites for publishing allegedly defamatory and inflammatory content. But yesterday, Union law minister Salman Khurshid said the social media was now “a fact of life” and one had to take it in one’s stride.
“A new practice has developed in the social media of its misuse for defaming people, groups, religions, communities,” Katju wrote to Soni. “The recent example is of dissemination of a CD which even the author admitted had been distorted for defaming... (Singhvi) and the threat to defame a Union minister.”
Whoever uploaded the video has also threatened to upload a similar clip of home minister P. Chidambaram if the government blocked the Singhvi page.
Singhvi had on Friday got a court injunction against publication or circulation of the CD after his former driver, Mukesh Lal, admitted to morphing the video after Singhvi’s dog bit his wife.
The Press Council chairman today joined the chorus for a leash on the social media, citing how a sleaze video featuring Congress MP Abhishek Singhvi had been uploaded on YouTube despite a court injunction.
Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju wrote to I&B minister Ambika Soni to raise a team of legal and technical experts to check “this menace” and, if necessary, frame a law to filter out “offensive material”.
Union minister Kapil Sibal and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had in the recent past demanded curbs on social networking websites for publishing allegedly defamatory and inflammatory content. But yesterday, Union law minister Salman Khurshid said the social media was now “a fact of life” and one had to take it in one’s stride.
“A new practice has developed in the social media of its misuse for defaming people, groups, religions, communities,” Katju wrote to Soni. “The recent example is of dissemination of a CD which even the author admitted had been distorted for defaming... (Singhvi) and the threat to defame a Union minister.”
Whoever uploaded the video has also threatened to upload a similar clip of home minister P. Chidambaram if the government blocked the Singhvi page.
Singhvi had on Friday got a court injunction against publication or circulation of the CD after his former driver, Mukesh Lal, admitted to morphing the video after Singhvi’s dog bit his wife.