Indian court tells networking giants to remove offensive posts

Calls for censorship are ordinarily quite troubling, especially when coming from courts and other authorities, but this ruling by some Indian tribunal ordering numerous international social networking giants to delete any and all postings that pearl-clutchers may find offensive!, wrong-headed as it is, is just amusing:

A Delhi Court on Saturday ordered 22 social networking sites, including Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, to remove all "anti-religious" or "anti-social" contents in the next one-and-a-half-month and file compliance reports by February 6, 2012. Additional Civil Judge Mukesh Kumar passed the order on a suit filed by Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi seeking to restrain the websites from circulating objectionable and defamatory contents.

Kumar had on December 20 issued summonses to the social networking sites and asked them to remove objectionable photographs, videos or texts that might hurt religious sentiments.

The order comes a day after a criminal court issued summonses to the sites for facing trial for allegedly webcasting objectionable contents. The court had also directed the Centre to take "immediate appropriate steps" and file a report by January 13.

Yeah … lemme know how that works out for ya.

(via RichardDawkins.net)

Tags: Mukesh Kumar • India • Facebook • Google • Yahoo • Microsoft • Mufti Aijaz Arshad