Inflammatory content uploaded from Pakistan, say networking sites

New Delhi: Social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube have informed the government that inflammatory content uploaded on their pages have indicated that they originated from Pakistan.

"The initial response from international social networking sites indicates that such content has been hosted from outside the country and to a large extent from a neighbouring country (Pakistan)," Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEIT) said in a statement.

The response of the websites came after the government ordered a ban on 245 pages saying that morphed images and videos displaying alleged atrocities on Muslims were uploaded. The government also said that these created a fear psychosis among Indians from the Northeast and their mass exodus from different parts of the country.

Sites like Facebook and YouTube have informed the government that the hate content originated from Pakistan.

A lot of inflammatory and harmful content/information has been found to be appearing on the social networking sites hosted outside the country, the statement said.

However, one of the intermediary sites has conveyed to the DEIT that uploaders of the inflammatory and hateful content were outside the jurisdiction of the country, "thereby implying that they are not obliged to take any constructive step to deal with it".

The DEIT said most of the content was taken from events "unrelated to the incident occurred in Assam. Hosting of such morphed image and video led to a lot of inciting comments from users on the blogs... and circulation of hate SMSes".

"The DEIT has been working with international social networking sites on this issue. However, a lot more and quicker action is expected from them to address such a sensitive issue which concern restoring peace, harmony, public order and national security," the statement said.

It said proxy servers and virtual private network services which hide the user identity appear to have been used for uploading the content. The agencies are continuously monitoring hosting of such inflammatory and harmful content.

DEIT said that on August 17 it had issued an advisory to all intermediaries, including national and international social networking sites, advising them to take necessary action to disable such inflammatory and hateful content hosted on their websites on priority basis.

Besides, it had called a meeting of the representatives of international social networking sites based in India and advised them to take all possible actions to disable such content immediately.

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