Arup Roychoudhury and Harichandan Arakali New Delhi

INTERNET giants Google and Facebook removed content from some Indian domain websites yesterday following a court directive warning them of a crackdown “like China” if they did not take steps to protect religious sensibilities.

They are among 21 companies asked to develop a mechanism to block objectionable material after a private petitioner took them to court over images deemed offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

The case has stoked fears about censorship in the world’s largest democracy.

“(Our) review team has looked at the content and disabled this content from the local domains of search, Youtube and Blogger,” Google spokeswoman Paroma Roy Chowdhury said.

At the heart of the dispute is a law that India passed last year making companies responsible for user content posted on their websites, and giving them 36 hours to remove content if there is a complaint.

Last month, the companies said it was impossible for them to block content. Chowdhury declined to comment on what had since been removed, and a Facebook representative said the company would release a statement later.

A lower court in New Delhi told the firms yesterday to put in writing the steps they had taken to block offensive content, and submit reports to the court within 15 days.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and Microsoft have appealed in the Delhi High Court against a criminal case successfully brought by a Hindu petitioner. A civil case against them has been brought to a lower court by a Muslim claimant.

“If the companies have actually removed some content, they should put in place a mechanism to do it regularly, instead of waiting for a court case every time,” said Vinay Rai, the Hindu petitioner.

A Microsoft spokesman said the company “has filed an application for rejection of the suit on the grounds that it disclosed no cause of action against Microsoft”.

Fewer than one in 10 of India’s 1.2 billion population has access to the internet, but that still makes it the third-biggest internet market after China and the US. The number of internet users in India is expected to almost triple to 300 million over the next three years.

While civil rights groups have opposed the new laws, politicians say posting offensive images in a socially conservative country, which has a history of violence between religious groups, presents a danger.

Despite the new rules to block offensive content, India’s internet access is still largely uncensored. – Reuters