No plans to censor social media: Sibal

Allaying fears of a China-like crackdown on companies like Google and Facebook, Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal has said the government has no plans to censor the social media but they have to obey the laws of the country. “I have never said that we want to censor. The government doesn’t want to do anything with them,” Sibal said.

He added that print and electronic media were governed by the laws of the country, so the social media could not be above it. “It is not for us to tell them because we are not here to decide how they must obey the law... It is the social media’s responsibility,” Sibal said.

He added that the government was aware of certain things happening in the social media that were contrary to the laws of the country but the government had not taken any action despite the fact that the present regulations under the Act empowered the government to do so.