Sunday, Aug 20, 2017

Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Public Prosecution has ordered the detention of three young men and a girl for posting unlawful video clips on YouTube.

They were detained for seven days for further investigation, the prosecution said on Sunday.

The accused were charged for misusing information technology tools, breaching public order and spreading unlawful video clips on social website YouTube.

The clips contained content that are against the law of the country.

One of the accused and the girl acted in the video, while other defendants participated in its filming and preparation. The video was 33 minutes in length.

Then the first accused edited the video and posted it on his personal YouTube account.

All accused in the case have confessed to the crime. In their statement they claimed that they aimed to spread awareness among girls not to go out with people whom they knew only through social media sites as online profiles are unreliable indicators of a people’s intent.

But they claimed that first accused’s website was hacked and a small clip — a minute in length — was edited out and published. The accused deleted the video from public viewing and put it for private viewing only before deleting it completely on the advice of media who contacted him and explained the legal consequences of his actions.

However, the public prosecution asserted that the law of the land doesn’t permit any activities that violate public order and misuse of modern technologies particularly on social networking sites.

Any such content publicised through social media sites that harm the society are punishable whether they are in forms of words, sentences, signs, symbols, drawings, photographs, recordings or writings including visible, audible or readable, the public prosecution said on Sunday.

Staff Report

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