Web firms told to remove content

US firms Facebook, Google and Yahoo as well as other internet companies have been ordered by two Indian courts to remove material considered religiously offensive, the latest skirmish in a growing battle over website content in the world’s largest democracy.

One court in the capital Delhi yesterday issued summons to 19 companies to stand trial for offences relating to distributing obscene material to minors, after being shown images it said were offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians, the PTI news agency reported.

“The accused in connivance with each other and other unknown persons are selling, publicly exhibiting and have put into circulation obscene, lascivious content, metropolitan magistrate Sudesh Kumar said yesterday in the PTI report.

India generally has unrestricted access to the internet for those of its 1.2 billion people who can afford it and are on the electrical and telephone grids.

So far, only about one-tenth of the population use the web, but with the number of connections growing fast in the religiously conservative society, concerns about the nature of internet content are growing in some quarters, including among senior government officials.

Another Delhi court earlier this week told the websites to remove photo-graphs, videos or

“We believe that access to information is the foundation of a free society,” a Google spokesman said in a statement.

“Where content is illegal or breaks our terms of service we will continue to remove it.”

The courts and the other companies were not immediately available for comment.

— Reuters