Why social media companies cannot be included as accused or abettor in criminal cases, Madras HC asks state govt
Jan 21, 2022
Madurai (Tamil Nadu) [India], January 21 : The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Thursday sought a reply from the Tamil Nadu government and state Police as to why social media companies cannot be included as accused or abettor in criminal cases involving social media platforms.
This comes in response to a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu police seeking to cancel the bail granted to YouTuber Saattai Duraimurugan who came up for a hearing before Justice B Pugalendhi.
Justice B Pugalendhi, observed that misuse of technology cannot be allowed and asked the police to submit a report on how much the YouTuber Duraimurugan earns by broadcasting the objected videos through the social media platforms.
The judge, while asking Duraimurugan's counsel, orally observed that several people are misusing the platform to earn money and some have even admitted that they learned to commit offences like making guns, robbing through videos on Youtube. He also questioned why the social media platforms like YouTube cannot be added as an accused in such cases.
The judge also directed the Tamil Nadu ADGP - Cyber Crime branch to submit a detailed report on the mechanism needs to be adopted to prevent misuse of YouTube in a week.