The Supreme Court has sought the response of US-based instant messaging application firm WhatsApp Inc in a matter relating to blocking of sexual offence videos on social networking sites.
The court, while making WhatsApp Inc a party in the matter, said that the petitioner might send a detailed e-mail to them to make a presentation, if possible through video conferencing.
This would assist the committee set up by the court to explore a technical solution to block such videos. The court’s order came after the counsel for the petitioner mentioned the matter before it seeking to make WhatsApp a party in the case.
The court had on March 22 constituted a committee comprising representatives from the Centre and Internet majors to explore a technical solution to block videos of sexual offences on social networking sites. It had given the nominees of Google India, Microsoft India, Yahoo India, Facebook and other internet intermediaries 15 days to meet and come up with a solution.
The Centre had earlier informed the apex court that it would set up a specialised agency to block and curb sharing of sexual offence videos on social networking platforms.
