[samanth]

Facebook, Google remove objectionable content

Online social network Facebook India has filed its compliance report before the Delhi court which had ordered it and 21 other websites to remove objectionable content from their websites.

Google India has also told the court that it has removed certain web pages from the Internet on which objections were raised by the petitioners.

There are among 21 web firms, including Yahoo and Orkut, facing a civil suit in Delhi accusing them of hosting material that may cause communal unrest.

Meanwhile, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft told the court that they have no role to play in the case and there is no cause of action against them in the matter.

Additional Civil Judge Praveen Singh also posed a query to the counsel appearing for petitioner Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi, as to whether the blog service-providing companies can be made a party to the case for any content posted by the users on the blogs.

The court had on 20 December 2011, in an ex-parte order, issued summons to 22 social networking websites asking them to remove "anti-religious" or "anti-social" content in the form of photographs, videos or text which might hurt religious sentiments.

The Delhi High Court had earlier asked Facebook and Google India to develop a mechanism to keep a check and remove offensive and objectionable material from their web pages or else it would block the sites like what is happening in China.