Govt to soon introduce a mechanism to regulate social media

New Delhi, September 08: Taking another step to tighten is nooses around social media, the Central government has informed Delhi High Court that they are going to come up with a mechanism that will help govt to regulate social media.

 

 

While giving the information about the mechanism, the central government also apprised HC that the mechanism will not cover the existing cases including the account suspension by the platforms.

 

The counsel for Central Government made this statement during a hearing on a batch of petitions against the suspension of social media accounts by social media platforms including Twitter before the bench of Justice Yashwant Varma.

 

Advocate Kirtiman Singh appearing on behalf of the centre told the bench, " we have checked up in terms of your lordship's last order. The amendment will take place at some point of time, we don't really know (when). It will be a prospective change and will not cover the existing cases, they will perhaps have to decide as per the existing scheme.

 

 

The court raised a question as to why the existing grievances and account deletion won't be dealt with in terms of the proposed mechanism. The court said it wanted to understand the impact of any new regime on the cases before it.

 

The court said that before entering into judgement, we also want to understand if there is any regulatory mechanism that they are proposing to implement, and whether that would have any impact on this batch.

Last month the court had asked the centre if it was contemplating any draft regulatory measures relating to social media platforms.

 

The bench was hearing the batch of petitions against the suspension and social media accounts of users by the social media platforms. One of the petitions was filed by Senior counsel Sanjay Hegde against the suspension of his Twitter account.