Facebook India seeks its omission from objectionable content lawsuit

If you thought that the ongoing lawsuit against social networking websites in the country, including that against Facebook India was almost dying out, then an update coming in clearly indicates that it is far from over. Facebook India, among those accused in the lawsuit for having allegedly hosting objectionable content on their sites, thereby being potent of harming the nation's peace and harmony reiterated at one of the hearings of the lawsuit at a Delhi court that they weren't responsible for the content posted on their website. Facebook has also sought the omission of their name from the list of accused in the lawsuit. The court, after hearing Facebook has reportedly reserved its order for May 22. In their statement submitted to Administrative Civil Judge Parveen Singh, Facebook India it was re-iterated that, "It is not responsible for hosting the content that may appear on facebook.com as it does not control or operate the servers that host the website, which are located in the United States."

Seeks omission from lawsuit..

Facebook India, right since the beginning have maintained that it provides only technical support and services to Facebook (U.S), and hence should not be included in the lawsuit. In one of our earlier reports covering the topic, Facebook India was quoted as saying, "The plaintiff has filed the present suit with ulterior motives to harass Facebook. The present suit is a gross abuse of the process of law and filed with ulterior motive of publicity and causing harassment to it."

It all began late last year, when reports about Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi, the founder of Fatwaonline.org filing a lawsuit against 21 social networking websites in the country first surfaced. Reportedly, Qasmi was not pleased one bit with the way in which certain websites were hosting objectionable content, which included images, videos, posts, among others; some depicting images of gods and goddesses, too. The government then issued notices to some 21 social networking websites, including popular ones like Facebook, Google, YouTube, among others, asking them to sanitize their content or face a ban. Over the course of several hearings, the court dropped a host of names from the lawsuit, which included some big names, like Microsoft. The lawsuit, however at every stage has been grabbing headlines the world over and the websites have been working at getting their names off the list. 

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