BENGALURU: A Parliamentary committee formed to study the prevalence of adult pornography and child abuse videos on social media platforms in India has questioned microblogging platform Twitter and tech giant Google, and has sought answers on how they will curb children’s access to such content.
The committee, headed by Congress Party leader and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh, is studying the ‘alarming issue’ of pornography on social media and its effect on children and society.
The panel, formed in December, has so far met with representatives of Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Google and ShareChat. Last week, the panel members asked Twitter about its policy allowing pornography on its platform, according to two sources. However, Twitter clarified that its policy allows only consensually shot pornography and does not permit revenge pornography or child abuse material.
The panel also asked Google what it was doing to limit discovery of pornography on its search engine and video platform YouTube, according to a source. Google is believed to have replied that login details were required to discover adult content on YouTube.
According to YouTube’s policy, content creators can age-restrict videos. So, for example, when a video is age-restricted, viewers must be signed in and be of 18 years of age or older to view it. Twitter suggested to the committee that the industry and government should take a “constructive” approach to educate teenagers on how to make their online experience pleasant, positive and safe, according to the source. Share-Chat, which also made its submissions before the panel, called for regulations to provide contractual protection to the digital interactions of young adults and said India could look at a framework such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) framed by the US, according to another source.
The panel will present a report with a set of suggestions on legislative and regulatory changes. To be sure, viewing of pornographic content is not illegal in India. A Twitter spokesperson told ET that the platform had a zero-tolerance policy for child sexual exploitation but did not answer a question on the panel’s concern about adult pornography and its access to children. Google and ShareChat declined to comment. Twitter’s policy towards nudity and pornography is known to be far more liberal than other platforms.
Its latest policy states that users can share consented adult content within their Tweets, provided they mark this media as sensitive. However, users cannot include adult content within areas that are highly visible on Twitter, including live video, profile or header images.
On the other hand, Instagram and Facebook do not allow ‘nudity’ of any kind except photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding.
[“source=economictimes”]
