Panel to suggest way to curb hate content on social media

New Delhi: A committee has been formed to discuss the mechanism with social media companies to filter hate and other undesirable content on their platforms, Parliament was informed on Friday.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Electronics and IT PP Chaudhary said that a large number of Internet-based social media platforms many of which are hosted by foreign service providers have proliferated over the past decades.

"These social media sites are being misused by anti- national elements for propagating hate message," he said.

Several incidents of availability of inflammatory, harmful and hateful content on various websites, including social networking sites hosted outside the country have been brought to the notice of the government.

Chaudhary said that the government is working closely with social media service providers for setting up a mechanism for sharing of data for law enforcement purposes within the ambit of domestic law.

"A committee has also been formed to discuss the mechanism with social media companies to filter hate and other undesirable content on their platforms," he said.

Chaudhary has earlier said that instances of objectionable videos being uploaded through mobile phones and shared through Whats App have been noticed.

The Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 as amended in 2008, has provision for punishment for publishing or transmitting objectionable contents under section 67 and 66E.