SC prod on Net 'firewall'

TT, New Delhi, Feb. 1: The Supreme Court today directed Internet search engines Google, Microsoft and Yahoo and social media sites Facebook and WhatsApp to develop a "firewall" of the kind evolved in China to prevent by default the uploading of offensive material, like rape and gang-rape videos.

The court granted them three weeks to come out with the mechanism, brushing aside a plea by Google and others that they would remove such material within "48-72 hours" of receiving a complaint.

A bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit wondered why the IT giants were shying away from developing such a mechanism when China had managed to do so.

The counsel of NGO Prajwala, which drew the court's attention to the uploading of gang-rape videos on Yahoo and WhatsApp, told the courtthe mechanism developed by China was called the "Great Firewall of China".

"If China can evolve such a technology why can't you?" the bench asked the counsels appearing for the search engines.