Indian Court Stops Streaming Hearings On Social Media To Protect Lawyers From Mean Memes

The High Court of the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh has stopped live-streaming hearings to protect local lawyers from ridicule on social media.

Madhya Pradesh is home to over 70 million people and is one of India’s better-developed and wealthier states. The state judiciary streamed many criminal cases live online, but a chap named Arihant Tiwari found the practice odious because, as explained in a court notice [PDF], he felt the streams were “misused by several private entities in creating reals, clips and memes, which are derogatory and wrongfully portray the legal fraternity.”

Tiwari pointed to precedents that prevent courts from streaming proceedings on YouTube, Twitter, and other social media services.

The court hasn’t reached a final decision but did order its Registry to stop live streaming bench hearings and criminal cases until it resolves the matter.

It also ordered its Registry to continue streaming proceedings on Cisco’s Webex collaboration service and to provide a link to each stream, but without enabling features that allow recording of each stream.

The management tools Cisco provides for Webex apps can disable screen capture. However, it is possible for third-party tools to capture a Webex session, and Cisco’s service can also present meetings in a browser – an environment in which blocking screen capture is very hard.

Perhaps the Madhya Pradesh High Court thinks no meme-maker would be caught dead on Webex, and its streams are therefore safe from online mockery.

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India’s state and national courts have different rules about live streaming cases, but the national government has funded an e-justice project that aims to expand online broadcasts. That effort appears to have stalled.

Local media suggest the Madhya Pradesh High Court will need to weigh copyright, laws regarding streaming, and its own rules about access to and re-use of material before handing down a final ruling. ®