NEW DELHI, Sept 24 - Technology has taken a �dangerous turn�, the Supreme Court observed on Tuesday and asked the Centre to apprise it within three weeks about the time-frame needed to come up with guidelines to curb misuse of social media in the country.
Expressing serious concern over some social media platforms not being able to trace the originator of a message or an online content, a bench of justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose said the government must step in now.
Neither the apex court nor the high court is competent to decide this scientific issue and it is for the government to come up with appropriate guideline to deal with these issues, the bench said.
The top court had earlier asked the Centre to clarify whether it was contemplating forming guidelines or a framework for linking social media accounts of users with their 12-digit biometric unique identifier Aadhaar.
The court had said the matter, to help trace the originator of a content, needs to be decided at the earliest.
It had said that it would not go into the merits of the case and would only decide the plea filed by Facebook Inc, which is seeking transfer of cases related to Aadhaar linking pending before high courts of Madras, Bombay and Madhya Pradesh to itself.
The Centre told the court that it had no objection to transfer of the cases as considerable judicial time has been spent by high courts on such cases. Facebook and instant messaging app WhatsApp, had said they have filed two appeals against Madras High Court orders.
The Tamil Nadu government in its reply to the transfer petition had claimed that Facebook Inc and other social media companies were not complying with Indian laws, resulting in �increased lawlessness� and difficulties in �detecting crimes�.
It had sought modification of the August 20 order of the apex court directing the Madras High Court to continue hearing pleas for linking social media profiles with Aadhaar but restraining it from passing any orders.
The high court is at an advanced stage of hearing but due to the apex court�s August 20 order, it deferred the hearing on those petitions, the state government had said. � PTI
