1,662 defamatory websites, contents blocked by social media platforms: Govt

As many as 1,662 defamatory websites and contents were blocked by social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter following requests from law enforcement agencies, Union Minister Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said on Tuesday.

Facebook has blocked 956 URLs against requests for 1,076 URLs, Twitter 409 URLs against 728 requests and YouTube 152 URLs against 182 requests, Ahir said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

The minister said Instagram has blocked 66 URLs against requests for 150 and others have blocked 79 URLs against requests for 109 URLs.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is an address that shows where a particular page can be found on the world wide web.

These URLs were blocked from January 2017 till June 2018.

The Union Minister of State for Home said law enforcement agencies monitor the web and social media, and take appropriate action for blocking such unlawful content under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The government holds meetings with intermediaries from time to time for strengthening the cooperation framework to ensure better compliance, he said.