Social media intermediaries can't monitor, remove videos of court hearings: Meta and Google to Delhi High Court

Tech giants Google and Meta have opposed a plea before the Delhi High Court seeking directions requiring social media intermediaries to take proactive measures to prevent the upload, re-upload and dissemination of unauthorised recordings of court proceedings.

Google has said that such a direction is legally untenable and impossible to implement. 

The platform stated that recordings are made outside YouTube and it cannot determine whether a video depicts court proceedings, whether the recording was authorised, or whether it violates any law, especially since court rules vary across India.

"Further, apart from the specifically identified videos on YouTube, the Answering Respondent [Google] cannot sift through the millions of videos on its platform and/ or monitor its platform to determine if there are other videos which pertain to unauthorised recordings of court proceedings and are in violation of applicable law," the tech giant said.

It added that it is well settled that Google is only required to remove videos "specifically identified by their URLs, once the specific videos have been adjudicated to be violative of the applicable law" by a court. 

Meta, which operates Instagram and Facebook, has argued that the attempt to impose a proactive monitoring obligation on it violates Section 79 of the Information Technology Act and Supreme Court judgments.

Both Google and Meta argue that intermediaries cannot be required to independently determine whether user-generated content is lawful or monitor platforms for potentially illegal material. 

Meta stressed IT Rules contemplate only a narrow obligation with respect to proactive technology-based measures and the obligation to remove content “is premised upon a court or competent authority having already found specific content unlawful and directed that an intermediary action it”. 

“Read in the context of the statutory scheme as a whole, Rule 4(4) reinforces that the requirement of “reasonable efforts”under Rule 3(1)(b)(xi) cannot be understood as imposing upon intermediaries an obligation to proactively identify and independently determine whether previously unidentified content violates every law in force,” Meta’s affidavit read. 

The affidavits were filed in response to a plea by advocate Vaibhav Singh seeking action against persons who uploaded videos of Arvind Kejriwal addressing Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma’s court in person. Kejriwal had argued the case in person seeking Justice Sharma’s recusal in the excise policy case. 

Soon after the hearing, several videos of the proceedings went viral on social media. 

In his plea, Singh has also sought directions to social media platforms to prevent unauthorised recordings of court proceedings from surfacing online. 

The High Court had also expressed its concerns over the issue in April, stating it involved the larger interest of the institution of the judiciary and unauthorised recordings need to be controlled. 

When the matter came up for hearing on Monday before a Division Bench of Justices V Kameswar Rao and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, the Court noted that several respondents (including Kejriwal and many other AAP leaders) were yet to be served. Therefore, the Court adjourned the case to August. 

Meanwhile, journalist Ravish Kumar has also filed his reply to the petition and stated that his post, flagged by petitioner Vaibhav Singh, “does not contain any scurrilous, scandalous or defamatory imputation” against the court or the judge and is covered under journalistic expression and fair comment. 

Kumar said that neither he nor anyone connected with him recorded the court’s proceedings and Singh has not “produced an iota of material” to show that he is the originator of any such recording. 

The veteran journalist added that “as an act demonstrating his bona fides and his abiding respect” for the court, he voluntarily took down the post attributed to his handle before any court order was passed.