New Delhi: A Delhi court will be hearing a civil suit against 22 social networking websites on Monday. The websites were asked to remove all objectionable content and file a reply stating the measures taken to screen uploaded content.
A criminal suit is also being heard in the Patiala house court on Monday, which had summoned representatives of websites including that of Google and Facebook. The counsels for the web portals had later challenged the order in the high court.
Google and Facebook had argued that it is impossible for them to pre-screen content with billions of users accessing websites every day and that ultimately was a question of the users' freedom of expression.
The Delhi High Court had on January 19 adjourned the case against Google and Facebook till February 2. The social networking sites had filed petitions challenging the notices for allowing objectionable content on their websites.
Google and Facebook had earlier told the court not to allow the suppression of the right to freedom of speech as democratic India was not totalitarian China. Google had earlier told the Court that blocking was not an option in a democracy.
"The issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression and suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China," advocate NK Kaul, appearing for Google India, said in court.
Facebook too had noted that it already has rules of blocking and removing content, whenever specific matters are brought to its notice. Both websites are challenging a trial court's order to prosecute them.
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