Delhi, 28 April (H.S.): The Supreme Court has agreed to review a plea urging the government to take urgent and effective measures to regulate explicit content on social media and OTT platforms. Justices B.R. Gavai and A.G. Masih, on Monday, issued a notice to the Centre, acknowledging the petition's relevance concerning the spread of objectionable content online. Notices were also sent to major platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, Google, and Meta.

The bench advocated for stricter legislative actions to combat the unchecked dissemination of obscene materials, to which Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned existing regulations and proposed additional measures under consideration. The petition, which will be joined with similar cases, asserts that the rampant sharing of extreme content—including child pornography and sexually explicit media—contributes to increasing crimes against women and children while negatively impacting youth development.

The plea emphasized that without regulation, this proliferation could severely undermine societal values and public safety. It claims efforts to inform authorities about the issue have not produced satisfactory results, highlighting the government's failure to tackle this urgent concern effectively. The petition argues that unrestricted access to explicit content fosters unhealthy behaviors and desensitizes young individuals to violence and objectification.

Emphasizing Article 38 of the Constitution, it stresses the government's responsibility to protect social order and ensure public welfare by limiting the spread of pornography. The petition contends that the continuous availability of sexualized content on mobile devices contributes significantly to the rising incidence of sexual offenses against vulnerable populations, especially children and teenagers.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar