Hate speech: ban or ignore?
This discussion was aired on NDTV on February 5, 2013
Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society, and Shivam Vij of Kafila.com joined NDTV in the studio while actor and standup comic Sanjay Rajoura joined via webcam.
Pranesh said that the talk of banning these videos is foolish. He added, I don't think that is a solution. But the issue is one of criminal prosecution – whether that should happen or not, and with regard to the interesting dichotomy that Shivam pointed out some people are calling for somethings to be banned but not others. I think that kind of hypocrisy should be pointed out. I am happy that these small incidents of hate mongering are actually being blown out of proportion on social media because it actually gets people to react...to say wait a second...that is not right I might have a certain leanings towards Hindutva but that kind of speech is not what I support, or I might have a certain leanings towards what is called "pseudo-secularism" but that kind of speech is not what I support. So getting out that discussion out is important.
If we were on one hand a society where we had communal peace and then social media were focusing on these small kinds of incidents and blowing it out of proportion then that would be a problem.
