Inflammatory content uploaded from Pak, say networking sites

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

"The initial response from international social networking sites indicates that such contents have 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 these websites came after the government ordered ban 245 pages charging that morphed images and videos were uploaded displaying alleged atrocities on Muslims. The government also said that these led to the fear psychosis among the people of the North-East and their mass exodus from different parts of the country.

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 contents 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 contents were 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.