Mumbai: The Bombay high court has issued notices to YouTube, Google and Twitter after a petition was filed by Sagar Suryawanshi seeking ban on advertisements posted in bulk on social media during election period.
The petitioner informed the court that during elections, some paid advertisements were circulated on social media to promote candidates or political parties and as per the model code of conduct, no party could advertise or do promotions 48 hours before the elections.
On Monday, Darius Khambata, Facebook counsel, informed the division bench of chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice N.M. Jamdar, “We have a unique style of functioning all over the world. Under which, we provide platform to express opinions and information on facebook. India is a large country and here, elections have taken place phase-wise in different states, therefore, we can’t put restrictions indiscriminately on posts.”
Advocate Khambata further argued that they did not have any independent censorship on the posts but if the Central Election Commission so informed them, they could remove the objectionable posts from facebook. He sought time to file a detailed affidavit in this regard. The petitioner told the court that during the election period, many bogus accounts would be created.
The petitioner’s lawyer, Abhinav Chandrachud, however, told the bench that social networking sites such as Facebook had advertising policies in the UK and the USA where all advertisements and paid content were subjected to a strict verification process. He argued that a similar policy must be implemented in India.
