A two person bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P Sathasivam refused to protect a 19 year old boy, who had started a community on a networking site, against a political party. An FIR was lodged against him, by the political party under sections 506 and 295 A, pertaining to hurting public sentiment.
The accused moved the court saying the contents were restricted to communication within the community and did not have defamation value. With the supreme court ruling against this petition, saying content posted on social networking and blogging platforms may result in libel and even prosecution, bloggers are no longer immune.
Seems fine to me. There have been instances of entire networking sites been banned in the country, for short periods of time, due to various reasons. Organisations have recognized that social media has the power to influence views of people. They take their image on these platforms as a serious and sensitive issue.
While going through the terms and conditions of blogger I realised that google does not monitor the content posted. So even though transmitting pornography is illegal in India, I came across many pornographic blogs set up by Indians, don't ask me the url's.
Internet throws up new challenges. Duplicating content is super easy and a hosting / service provider site may have no physical presence in the state where it created a controversy. Howver this ruling has made it clear that content posted on the net will ultimately have to follow the same laws which are followed by content posted on other media.
News Source : TOI
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Yeah...
ReplyDeleteEven I have the same opinion to check the content or for the comments and the intensity of those comments.Do u think that only communities can really affect the views of the people?
then what about the comments that are made by political parties among each others in the very assemblies/parliaments/road shows/ electronic media?... is a community (where people who dont have power to express the views in assemblies or parliaments)and keeping their views in words affect more than what the very leaders are commenting/blaming each other??????????????
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Hi Meenakshi,
ReplyDeleteI believe we live in a democratic country and all of us have the freedom to express our opinion. The law of the land applies to all, be they ordinary citizens or MP's. If u have been following news in the past couple of days u wud have noticed that some politicians have come under the scanner for the words they used during their speeches. I guess ur freedom ends where my nose starts.
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