New Delhi: The Railway Ministry has instructed platform X to remove 285 social media links displaying videos of casualties from the deadly stampede at New Delhi Railway Station on February 15, according to reports.
The action derives from new authority granted on December 24 by the Railways Ministry, which enabled its executive director of information and publicity (Railway Board) to issue takedown orders directly to social media sites under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act. Previously, such requests were handled by the IT ministry's Section 69A blocking committee, TNIE reported.
The ministry has provided social media companies 36 hours to erase messages from several accounts, citing worries about “sensitive or disturbing media depicting deceased individuals”, the Hindustan Times reported.
The ministry in the February 17 notice said that it was empowered under the section to issue takedown notices “to remove/disable access to URLs, accounts, etc. where unlawful advertisements, endorsements, promotional content, etc. are published”.