What Twitter, Meta, WhatsApp and Google told court on removing circulation of ‘sexually explicit’ video

Technology giants including Twitter, Facebook-parent Meta and Google have responded to a Delhi High Court directive asking them to block the circulation of a video which purportedly showed a Central Bureau of Information (CBI) judge in the Rouse Avenue District Court Complex in an objectionable situation with a woman.
The video in question has been widely circulated on social media. The woman approached the High Court on November 30 and the judicial officer was suspended by the administrative wing of the Delhi High Court.
What Twitter, Meta and Google said
Responding to the November 30 directive, Twitter and Meta-owned Facebook told the court that they have removed the video from their platforms. The counsel for Google, which owns YouTube, said that the URLs of the video on YouTube will be taken down.
However, another Meta-owned platform WhatsApp told the court that the instant messaging platform cannot curb the dissemination of the video till the company has the phone numbers of people who circulated the video.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal who appeared for WhatsApp said, “They are expecting us to do something that we cannot do. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) also says we cannot do it till they give us phone numbers that circulated the video.”
Meanwhile, the counsel appearing for the woman told the court that some of the numbers and URLs will be supplied to the technology companies.

“The counsel for the plaintiff apprises the court that respondents have taken remedial action…he prays for and is granted liberty to provide URLs which carry the content in question to the concerned platforms for its removal,” the court said.
What did the court say in its order?
On November 30, the court ordered that the video is explicit in nature and imminent, grave and irreparable harm is likely to be caused to the privacy rights of the persons in the video.
“The defendants shall take all permissible steps to ensure that the further sharing, distribution, forwarding or posting of the offending video is restrained forthwith,” the court had said.
“Bearing in mind the sexually explicit nature of the contents of that video and taking into consideration the imminent, grave and irreparable harm that is likely to be caused to the privacy rights of the plaintiff an ad interim ex parte injunction is clearly warranted,” the judge said in the order.
The matter is listed for next hearing on February 8, 2023.