SC notice to Centre over obscene content on social media, OTT platforms
This story was originally published at 13:25 IST on 28 April 2025
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NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Centre on a petition seeking the government to take steps for prohibiting objectionable, obscene and indecent content on over-the-top streaming platforms and social media platforms. The apex court said that the plea "raises an important concern" and also sought responses from Netflix, Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd., Meta Platforms, INC., Google LLC, Apple Inc., X Corp. and others.
The petitioner Uday Mahurkar, a journalist and others, have sought a direction to the Centre for forming a panel to oversee and certify for the publishing, streaming of movies, shows, web series on over-the-top platforms and social media on the lines of Central Board of Film Certification until the appropriate legislature enacts a law for regulating such streaming.
Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, appearing for petitioners, said the content floating in the social media was without any restriction. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said that the government's worry was about children being exposed to obscenity. In some regular programmes, the language is such that it is perverted and two men cannot even sit together and see it, said Mehta. On this, Justice B.R. Gavai remarked, "Yes, we have seen children being given phones etc to keep them busy for sometime".
Justice Gavai said that it was either for legislature or executive to regulate such contents. "As it is, we are facing allegations of encroaching into legislative or executive domain. Anyways, we will issue a notice," said Justice Gavai. The top court noted Mehta's statement that some regulations were in existence and some more were being contemplated by the government. End
Reported by Surya Tripathi
Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury
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