PIL in Madras High Court to make YouTube conform to Indian law, religious beliefs

A lawyer from Chennai has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition before the Madras High Court seeking directions to the Tamil Nadu government and the State police to evolve a “regulatory mechanism” to ensure that content on YouTube is in conformity with the law, and social and religious beliefs of India..The petitioner, one V Parthiban claimed that YouTube has no mechanism to curb unruly and objectionable content, posts, or comments and therefore, a system must be put in place to check the same.A bench of Acting Chief Justice D Krishna Kumar and Justice K Kumaresh Babu on Monday adjourned the hearing on the PIL by a week and directed the petitioner to implead the Union government and YouTube as parties to the case..While the TN government attempted to oppose the petition questioning its maintainability, the bench said, “Let us hear it first. Let us see what he wants..We will issue notice.”The State then said that the petitioner had not even made the Central government and YouTube parties. At this, the Court decided not to issue notice yet. It instead adjourned the hearing by a week to give time to Parthiban to implead all relevant parties as respondents..In his PIL, Parthiban has said that YouTube has increasingly become a means for people to post “unruly comments,” and engage in “casual mudslinging” against politicians and public personalities. A user can also create multiple accounts at the same time and all of this goes unregulated at present, it was pointed out.There is no system to oversee and regulate content posted on the platform and YouTube only takes down content if a user flags it as objectionable, the PIL submitted..As per the plea, a regulatory mechanism for YouTube is essential because the platform has its origins in California in USA and does not take into account the religious and socio-cultural beliefs particular to India.“YouTube originates from California, USA and was brought into all countries without any strict regulations. Our country is relatively conservative and has an inbuilt restriction not to speak or post any content that disturbs one’s religious sentiments, personal lives, no mudslinging against politicians, public personalities,” the PIL said..In criminal jurisprudence, besides the perpetrator, the abettor is also punishable. It is Parthiban's case that since YouTube is the abettor, it must be held accountable.