If what the communication minister has said on Tuesday, it is amply clear that the government is working on plans to have the objectionable and the offensive user content on the pages of social networking sites removed..

He also rubbished a  news report published by New York Times suggesting that the Indian government is trying to censure the social media sites. He said it is the duty of the government to ‘do something about this’ if these sites fail to remove the offensive content. 

Though Sibal tried to put the focus on the religious sentiments of the people that these sites are hurting, the real purpose of the steps that the government is likely to take to tackle this menace is the manner in which the Congress President and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have been portrayed in these sites.

Sibal, it may be recalled, had met the representatives of these sites in New Delhi in September to raise his concerns on the issue and the series of the meetings thereafter failed to offer any solution to the smear campaigns so visible on these sites. 

Sibal said that in the meeting between the secretary, department of telecommunication, Chandershaker and the officials of these sites, it was orally decided that the government would chalk out a strategy in the form of a code of conduct to put a check on the offensive and objectionable content on these sites.