Obscene content: Google, Facebook may face criminal charges

New Delhi, Jan 13: The search engine giant - Google and one of the most famous social networking sites - Facebook might face criminal charges soon over obscene online content which have been posted in their site.

The Indian government, which was supposed to explain its policy to check objectionable content on its sites on Friday (Jan 13) evening, sanctioned the prosecution of executives from companies like Google and Facebook for objectionable content posted online.

Here it can be recalled that Delhi High court on Thursday warned the two sites after telling that their websites might blocked in the country. On Friday, the hearing in a lower court over the same case has been adjourned till Mar 13.

Justice Suresh Kait of Delhi High Court, slamming the representatives of Google India and Facebook, said, "Like China, we will block all such websites," and also asked them to remove "offensive and objectionable" materials from their web pages.

However, former Additional Solicitor General Mukul Rohatgi, who defended Google India in the court, said, "No human interference is possible, and moreover, it can't be feasible to check such incidents. Billions of people across the globe, post their articles on the website. Yes, they may be defamatory, obscene but cannot be checked."

Delhi Police had earlier received a notice by the Delhi High Court based on a petition filed against summons issued by a trial court to 21 websites, including Facebook, Google, Yahoo and YouTube, for allegedly hosting obscene and derogatory content.

Both Facebook and Google were issued summons by a trial court following which they had approached the High Court opposing the same.

OneIndia News