EU ruling may spell trouble for Facebook in India

NEW DELHI: A top European Union (EU) court's ruling against social media giant Facebook on Thursday could have persuasive implications against the company in a case in India's Supreme Court concerning traceability and social media platforms and several others in India's high courts, technology lawyers familiar with cases concerning the company in India said.The European Court of Justice ruled that national courts in Europe can order online platforms to remove defamatory content worldwide and that individual countries can order Facebook to take down posts, photographs and videos and restrict global access to that material. The top court’s decision came following a complaint by an Austrian politician who wanted to remove disparaging comments about her on Facebook.EU’s ruling comes at a crucial juncture when similar matters are pending in Indian courts, the lawyers said. “It is a foreign court’s judgement. It will not have a direct impact but will have persuasive value because similar matters are pending before Indian courts as well,” a lawyer familiar with developments concerning the company said.In July last year, Antony Clement Rubin filed a petition in the Madras High Court seeking the linking of Aadhaar with social media user profiles for authentication of identity as Rubin claimed he had been cyberbullied and was a victim of defamatory posts on Facebook. A division bench of the Madras High Court has since expanded the scope of the petition to include issues such as curbing cybercrimes and intermediary liability within the ambit of the legal proceedings.In August, Facebook and WhatsApp sought the transfer of four similar petitions on linking social media accounts with Aadhaar from various high courts to the SC.On September 24, the Supreme Court asked the government to file an affidavit in three weeks on the status of intermediary guidelines with definite timelines on them in the transfer petition matter and directed the government to curb social media misuse but ensure user privacy.Advocate Virag Gupta, who had sought impleadment in the matter, said that while Indian law already has rules for removal of objectionable content including fake news and hate speech, they are hardly enforced. “India is the biggest market for social media companies and this judgement provides a good opportunity to evolve a new set of cyber jurisprudence,” said Gupta.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2OjoVj2