SC notice to Twitter, Centre on plea seeking to curb fake news, abusive content

New Delhi, Feb 12: The Supreme Court has issued notices to Twitter and the Centre on a petition that sought to curb fake news and hate speech.

The petition filed by Vinit Goenka sought to curb hate speech, fake news and abusive content on the social media. While issuing notice, the court also tagged the plea with a bunch of similar petitions on the same subject.

Following the farmer protests, the government had asked Twitter to take down several handles that were posting inflammatory articles on the social media. While Twitter had initially blocked the accounts, the same were restored drawing the ire of the IT Ministry.

A Times of India report while quoting sources said that of the 1,435 handles flagged by the government, 1,398 have been taken down. The breakthrough came after IT secretary Ajay Sawhney met with Twitter executives on Wednesday, following which the social media giant began acting against the users.

Of the 257 handles that were sought to be blocked over the controversial hashtag, 220 have been taken down. Earlier Twitter had refused to comply with the government's requests. The IT secretary had expressed displeasure over the differential treatment by Twitter in handling of problems on Capitol Hill in the US and Red Fort in New Delhi.