New Delhi: Home secretary Rajiv Gauba along with senior officers from different ministries and security agencies chaired a high-level meeting on Wednesday with representatives of different social media platforms including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Whatsapp, You Tube and Instagram to review actions taken to prevent misuse of social media sites by undesirable elements and miscreants who were indulging in spreading rumours and causing unrest by inciting cyber crimes specially against women and children and other activities detrimental to national interest.
Sources said that during discussions, the representatives of these social media platforms informed the government about actions being initiated by them to ensure blocking of websites, as well as removal of objectionable and malicious contents from public view.
The home secretary asked social media representatives to take concrete steps to ensure a robust and effective system for preventing misuse of their platforms for activities detrimental to national security. He also asked them to nominate India based Grievance Redressal Officers, develop a monitoring mechanism for time bound preventive and other actions to remove objectionable contents from public view and prompt sharing of information sought by Law Enforcement Agencies for investigation purposes. All social media platforms assured full co-operation. The home secretary had on June 28 also held a review with the representatives of social media platforms following which a series of meetings have been held with law enforcement agencies and social media service providers to ensure effective measures to prevent misuse of these platforms by anti-national elements and those involved in proliferation of child sexually abuse material and other objectionable material.
A number of incidents have been reported over the last few months in which social media platforms were used to spread hate messages and rumours inciting violence, including against women. However, some of these platforms had earlier resisted sharing of customer details and message trails on grounds of privacy issues. But now all social media platforms have assured full co-operation with the Government on the issue said.
