The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 31 to 45.
Internet clamp outrage
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-gulf-daily-news-com-aug-25-2012-internet-clamp-outrage
<b>The Indian government's attempts to block social media accounts and websites that it blames for spreading panic have been inept and possibly illegal, a top Internet expert said yesterday.</b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Published in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=336599">Gulf Daily News</a> on August 25, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Earlier this month, thousands of people from the country's remote northeast began fleeing cities in southern and western India, as rumours swirled that they would be attacked in retaliation for ethnic violence against Muslims in their home state.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Last weekend, the government said the rumours were fed by gory images - said to be of murdered Muslims - that were actually manipulated photos of people killed in cyclones and earthquakes. Officials said the images were spread to sow fear of revenge attacks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After that, the government began interfering with hundreds of websites, including some Twitter accounts, blogs and links to certain news stories. The government also ordered telephone companies to sharply restrict mass text messages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is unclear who has been spreading the inflammatory material. Experts say that despite the government's electronic interference, there are many ways to access the blocked sites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"The government has gone overboard and many of its efforts are legally questionable," said Pranesh Prakash, who studies Internet governance and freedom of speech at The Center for Internet and Society, a research organisation in the southern city of Bangalore.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-gulf-daily-news-com-aug-25-2012-internet-clamp-outrage'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-gulf-daily-news-com-aug-25-2012-internet-clamp-outrage</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-27T05:13:31ZNews ItemCriticism mounts over India censorship
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ft-com-aug-24-2012-james-crabtree-tim-bradshaw-criticism-mounts-over-india-censorship
<b>India’s government is facing fierce criticism from privacy groups, political opponents and irate internet users accusing it of an excessive and poorly targeted censorship drive as it seeks to contain social alarm triggered by communal unrest.</b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">This article written by James Crabtree in Mumbai and Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco was published in Financial Times on August 24, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Following <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/80a70142-e7a1-11e1-86bf-00144feab49a.html" title="Thousands flee Bangalore over fear of persecution - FT.com">panicked scenes among groups from the nation’s troubled north-east</a> and fearing an escalation of urban violence between Muslim and Hindu groups, the administration this week instructed internet companies, including Facebook and <a href="http://markets.ft.com/tearsheets/performance.asp?s=us:GOOG">Google</a>, to block more than 300 web pages and more than a dozen Twitter accounts it claimed were inflaming communal tensions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But by Friday the order was being assailed as an example of administrative incompetence, as internet analysts revealed that many of the pages contained seemingly harmless material from foreign media organisations, political columnists and critics of India’s government.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pranesh Prakash, a legal expert at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said: “I am not questioning their original motives, but I do think this is excessive and incompetent censorship.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Political opponents also accused the government of over-reach, including Narendra Modi, the controversial chief minister of the state Gujarat and a member of the Hindu nationalist BJP party, who on Friday used a Twitter post to call the moves a “crackdown on freedom of speech”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government denies it is being heavy handed. “We are only taking strict action against those accounts or people which are causing damage or spreading rumours,” said Kuldeep Dhatwalia, an Indian home ministry spokesman. “We are not taking action against other accounts, be it on Facebook, Twitter or even SMSes.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter found itself at the centre of the growing controversy, as government spokespeople accused the US-based social networking site of failing to respond to requests to block users, some of which involved accounts appearing to impersonate Manmohan Singh, the prime minister.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter responded by suspending a number of impersonator accounts and is now in discussions with the prime minister’s office in an attempt to defuse the row, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Twitter declined to comment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Angry users also used the site to attack the restrictions using the hashtags #GOIblocks and #Emergency2012, the latter a highly charged reference to prime minister Indira Gandhi’s two-year period of rule by decree in the late 1970s.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has a long history of censorship measures designed to prevent communal violence, ranging from restrictions introduced under the British Raj in the early 20th century to more recent edicts banning Salman Rushdie’s novel <i>The Satanic Verses </i>and restricting derogatory portrayals of religious figures in Bollywood movies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Blocking content to help mitigate a volatile situation involving civilian security could be justified,” says Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “But when the government expresses equal concern about fake Twitter handles or criticism of political leaders, it begins to look like censorship.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The online restrictions followed related measures <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/91446d40-eb94-11e1-b8b7-00144feab49a.html" title="Indian mobiles go quiet amid SMS curbs - FT.com">restricting to five the number of text messages</a> that could be sent from most Indian mobile phones, although this was lifted to 20 on Thursday.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">They also came during a week of deepening political crisis in the world’s largest democracy, as opposition leaders repeatedly halted parliamentary proceedings and called for Mr Singh’s resignation in the aftermath of a critical report from India’s government auditor.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“These threats to social harmony are real, but like almost everything the Indian state is doing at present, the restrictions incompetently deal with a few symptoms rather than addressing causes,” says Pratap Bhanu Mehta of the Centre for Policy Research, a think tank in New Delhi. “They are simply exacerbating a crisis of trust, not solving it.”</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ft-com-aug-24-2012-james-crabtree-tim-bradshaw-criticism-mounts-over-india-censorship'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ft-com-aug-24-2012-james-crabtree-tim-bradshaw-criticism-mounts-over-india-censorship</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-27T06:38:51ZNews ItemTata Photon unblocks Wordpress.com
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/tech-2-in-com-aug-30-2012-tata-photon-unblocks-wordpress
<b>As of yesterday, the Tata Photon service of the Internet service provider (ISP) Tata Teleservices seems to have lifted the block it had put on the Wordpress.com domain for over a week.</b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The post was <a class="external-link" href="http://tech2.in.com/news/services/tata-photon-unblocks-wordpresscom/403112">published</a> in tech2 on August 30, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted in it.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Tech2 had reported on Saturday that the free platform of <b><a href="http://tech2.in.com/news/services/some-isps-block-wordpress-domain-across-india/392092" target="_blank" title="Some ISPs block Wordpress domain across India">Wordpress was put under a blanket ban across India by the ISP</a></b> following government orders to block around 309 URLs carrying disruptive or inflammatory content. Directives issued by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to ISPs between August 18 and 21 state that only the URLs mentioned be blocked, not entire domains. Users could neither view Wordpress blogs nor edit or post new content on them, the first instance of which was noticed by us on August 20.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our repeated efforts to contact Tata Teleservices' officials drew a blank. Numerous users who contacted customer service did not receive any replies or resolution. Through the course of the blockade, the ISP did not even display any message to Wordpress visitors that the domain was blocked, nor did it notify the owners of Wordpress blogs about it. Puzzled users tried resetting their Internet connections, clearing DNS caches, and calling the customer service helpline only to realise that they were experiencing an ISP-level block.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The reactions of Wordpress users ranged from annoyance to distress. Human rights activist and lawyer Kamayani Bali Mahabal commented on Tech2, <i>"Yes, my wordpress blog is blocked and I have 4 blogs...have also written to TATA. I can access through [an] anonymous browser but I cannot log in, edit and do admin functions, I can do about 50 percent work on my blog. Dashboard not accessible[,] barely manage to post, will be suing TATA soon"</i>. In a <b><a href="http://kractivist.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/tatadocomo-censorship-on-wordpress-step-by-step-guide-foe/" target="_blank" title="TATADOCOMO #censorship on wordpress- step by step guide #FOE">blog post</a></b>, she has described her experience of the block.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Blogger Shantanu Adhicary who goes by the <i>nom de blog</i> Tantanoo says, <i>"My blogs are self-hosted [on Wordpress] so I was not affected. But it was annoying that I was unable to access, read or comment on other Wordpress blogs, especially in the absence of any message whatsoever that this site has been blocked".</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The move by Tata Teleservices is being seen as ham handed; around 25 million Wordpress blogs were made inaccessible to deal with a few rotten eggs. Blogger and social media consultant Prateek Shah opines, <i>"Blanket bans on domains because content on some of their pages is objectionable are akin to jailing a certain section of society just because some people from the community broke the law. Wordpress plays an extremely important role on the Internet and if such a site were to go down even for a few hours, it would mean mayhem for bloggers as well as readers who count on the platform to get the latest updates and information. ISPs need to mature and grow up to the fact that one can't put millions of people in jeopardy when apparently trying to protect the interests of some".</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In June, the Madras High Court had granted relief to netizens in India by urging that there be no more John Doe orders. <i>“The order of interim injunction dated 25/04/2012 is hereby clarified that the interim injunction is granted only in respect of a particular URL where the infringing movie is kept and not in respect of the entire website. Further, the applicant is directed to inform about the particulars of URL where the interim movie is kept within 48 hours.”<i> </i></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director at Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), agrees the move was wrong but shares insights about the position of the ISPs. He says, <i>"It was obviously wrong. It contravenes the government's orders to not block the base URL but individual pages. Action should be taken against them for causing inconvenience to users. This is not the first time an ISP has gone overboard in implementing censorship, be it copyright issues, piracy or inflammatory content. In 2006, the government had </i><b><i><a href="http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=18954" target="_blank" title="DoT orders Internet Service Providers to block only the specified webpages/websites">chastised ISPs</a></i></b><i> for over-censoring content and blocking unintended websites and pages. Having said that, ISPs have numerous grouses against the government. They do not possess the technical capabilities to implement the government's orders, at times, whether about surveillance or censorship". </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ISPs that are also telecom services providers, find themselves <b><a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-08-25/news/33385182_1_isps-text-messages-smses" target="_blank" title="Blocking Twitter: How Internet Service Providers & telcos were caught between tweets and tall egos">unable to decipher government notifications</a></b> about shutting off content on the Internet or introducing curbs on mobile communication. <b><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analysing-blocked-sites-riots-communalism" target="_blank" title="Analysing Latest List of Blocked Sites (Communalism & Rioting Edition)">Prakash's analysis</a></b> of the 300-odd URLs blocked by the Indian government reveals glaring mistakes in the government directives <i>"that made blocking pointless and effectual"</i>. When asked to opine about what ISPs and telcos should do when the orders from the government were not crystal clear, Prakash said, <i>"They should ask for clarifications from the government. The operators sought clarifications from the Ministry of Telecommunications about the recent orders to ban bulk text messages and MMSes. The ministry was unable to resolve them, and in turn, sought further clarifications from the Home Ministry. The government should coordinate better"</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Tata Teleservices was not the only ISP guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Sify too reportedly imposed a blanket block on the Wordpress domain. Airtel went overboard by temporarily blocking Youtu.be URLs last week citing orders by the court or the DoT.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/tech-2-in-com-aug-30-2012-tata-photon-unblocks-wordpress'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/tech-2-in-com-aug-30-2012-tata-photon-unblocks-wordpress</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-09-03T01:53:47ZNews ItemInternet Analysts Question India’s Efforts to Stem Panic
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-nytimes-vikas-bajaj-aug-21-2012-internet-analysts-question-indias-efforts-to-stem-panic
<b>The Indian government’s efforts to stem a weeklong panic among some ethnic minorities has again put it at odds with Internet companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter. </b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">This article by Vikas Bajaj was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/business/global/internet-analysts-question-indias-efforts-to-stem-panic.html">published</a> by New York Times on August 21, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted. This was reposted in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/internet-analysts-question-india-s-efforts-to-stem-panic-257760">NDTV</a> on August 22, 2012.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Officials in New Delhi, who have had disagreements with the companies over restrictions on free speech, say the sites are not responding quickly enough to their requests to delete and trace the origins of doctored photos and incendiary posts aimed at people from northeastern India. After receiving threats online and on their phones, tens of thousands of students and migrants from the northeast have left cities like Bangalore, Pune and Chennai in the last week.<br /><br />The government has blocked 245 Web pages since Friday, but still many sites are said to contain fabricated images of violence against Muslims in the northeast and in neighboring Myanmar meant to incite Muslims in cities like Bangalore and Mumbai to attack people from the northeast. India also restricted cellphone users to five text messages a day each for 15 days in an effort to limit the spread of rumors.<br /><br />Officials from Google and industry associations said they were cooperating fully with the authorities. Some industry executives and analysts added that some requests had not been heeded because they were overly broad or violated internal policies and the rights of users.<br /><br />The government, used to exerting significant control over media like newspapers, films and television, has in recent months been frustrated in its effort to extend similar and greater regulations to Web sites, most of which are based in the United States. Late last year, an Indian minister tried to get social media sites to prescreen content created by their users before it was posted. The companies refused and the attempt failed under withering public criticism.<br /><br />While just 100 million of India’s 1.2 billion people use the Internet regularly, the numbers are growing fast among people younger than 25, who make up about half the country’s population. For instance, there were an estimated 46 million active Indian users on Facebook at the end of 2011, up 132 percent from a year earlier.<br /><br />Sunil Abraham, an analyst who has closely followed India’s battles with Internet companies, said last week’s effort to tackle hate speech was justified but poorly managed. He said the first directive from the government was impractically broad, asking all Internet “intermediaries” — a category that includes small cybercafes, Internet service providers and companies like Google and Facebook — to disable all content that was “inflammatory, hateful and inciting violence.”<br /><br />“The Internet intermediaries are responding slowly because now they have to trawl through their networks and identify hate speech,” said Mr. Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society, a research and advocacy group based in Bangalore. “The government acted appropriately, but without sufficient sophistication.”<br /><br />In the days since the first advisory went out on Aug. 17, government officials have asked companies to delete dozens of specific Web pages. Most of them have been blocked, but officials have not publicly identified them or specified the sites on which they were hosted. Ministers have blamed groups in Pakistan, a neighbor with which India has tense relations, for creating and uploading many of the hateful pages and doctored images.<br /><br />A minister in the Indian government, Milind Deora, acknowledged that officials had received assistance from social media sites but said officials were hoping that the companies would move faster.<br /><br />“There is a sense of importance and urgency, and that’s why the government has taken these out-of-the-way decisions with regards to even curtailing communications,” Mr. Deora, a junior minister of communications and information technology, said in a telephone interview. “And we are hoping for cooperation from the platforms and companies to help us as quickly as possible.”<br /><br />Indian officials have long been concerned about the power of modern communications to exacerbate strife and tension among the nation’s many ethnic and religious groups. While communal violence has broadly declined in the last decade, in part because of faster economic growth, many grievances simmer under the surface. Most recently, fighting between the Bodo tribe and Muslims in the northeastern state of Assam has displaced about half a million people and, through text messages and online posts, affected thousands more across India.<br /><br />Officials at social media companies, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending political leaders, said that they were moving as fast as they could but that policy makers must realize that the company officials have to follow their own internal procedures before deleting content and revealing information like the Internet protocol addresses of users.<br /><br />“Content intended to incite violence, such as hate speech, is prohibited on Google products where we host content, including YouTube, Google Plus and Blogger,” Google said in a statement. “We act quickly to remove such material flagged by our users. We also comply with valid legal requests from authorities wherever possible.”<br /><br />Facebook said in a statement that it also restricts hate speech and “direct calls for violence” and added that it was “working through” requests to remove content. Twitter declined to comment on the Indian government’s request.<br /><br />Telecommunications company executives criticized the government’s response to the crisis as being excessive and clumsy. There was no need to limit text messages to just five a day across the country when problems were concentrated in a handful of big cities, said Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India.<br /><br />“It could have been handled much more tactically,” he said.<br /><br />Others said the government could have been more effective had it quickly countered hateful and threatening speech by sending out its own messages, which it was slow to do when migrants from the northeast began leaving Bangalore on Aug. 15.<br /><br />“It has to also reach out on social networking and Internet platforms and dismantle these rumors,” Mr. Abraham said, “and demonstrate that they are false.”</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">A version of this article appeared in print on August 22, 2012, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Internet Moves by India to Stem Rumors and Panic Raise Questions.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-nytimes-vikas-bajaj-aug-21-2012-internet-analysts-question-indias-efforts-to-stem-panic'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-nytimes-vikas-bajaj-aug-21-2012-internet-analysts-question-indias-efforts-to-stem-panic</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-09-04T11:46:03ZNews ItemIndia limits social media after civil unrest
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/articles-latimes-com-mark-magnier-aug-23-2012-india-limits-social-media-after-civil-unrest
<b>Indian officials have gone too far in limiting text messages and pressuring local Internet firms as well as Twitter and others to block accounts, critics say.</b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">This article by Mark Magnier was published in <a class="external-link" href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/23/world/la-fg-india-twitter-20120824">Los Angeles Times</a> on August 23, 2012 and re-posted in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.channel6newsonline.com/2012/08/after-civil-unrest-indian-government-places-limits-social-media/">Channel 6 News</a> on August 24, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Has the Indian government lost its sense of humor?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">That's what some in India were asking as word spread that authorities had pressured Twitter into blocking several accounts parodying the prime minister after civil unrest that saw dozens of people from northeastern India killed and thousands flee in panic.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This week, the government also imposed a two-week limit of five text messages a day — raised Thursday to 20 — potentially affecting hundreds of millions of people, and pressured local Internet companies as well as Facebook, Twitter and Google to block hundreds of websites and user accounts.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Although journalists, free speech advocates and bloggers said the effort to squelch rumors may be justified, several criticized the actions as excessive.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"You cannot burn the entire house to kill one mischievous mouse," said Gyana Ranjan Swain, a senior editor at Voice & Data, a networking trade magazine. "You're in the 21st century. Their thinking is still 50 years old. It's just 'kill the messenger.'"</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Comedians said Indian political humor is evolving and there's more leeway to make fun of politicians than a decade ago, but the nation's mores still call for greater respect than in the West.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"If I tried something like South Park, I'd be put behind bars tomorrow," said Rahul Roushan, founder of Faking News website, which satirizes Indian current events.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Faking News has lampooned the recent corruption scandals, including specious stories about theme restaurants (where customers must bribe waiters or go hungry); and a tongue-in-cheek report that India has banned the zero because too many of them appear nowadays in auditors' reports, after recent coal and telecommunications scandals each allegedly involving more than $30 billion.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Roushan, whose site isn't blocked, said he hopes low-level officials misinterpreted government directives.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"I'm still in a state of disbelief," he said. "I don't think the government is so stupid that it can ask that parody accounts get taken down. If they did, God help this country."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A spokesman for the prime minister's office said the blocking of six fake Twitter accounts attributed to the prime minister has been in the works for months and wasn't related to the recent crisis. He said the move was in response to tweets containing hate language and caste insults that readers could easily mistake as the Indian leader's. A dozen Twitter accounts and about 300 websites were blocked, according to news reports.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"We have not lost our sense of humor," said Pankaj Pachauri, the prime minister's spokesman. "We started a procedure to take action against people misrepresenting themselves."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But some Twitter users whose accounts are frozen, including media consultant Kanchan Gupta, counter that the government may be using the crisis to muzzle critics.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"I'm very clear in my mind this is a political decision," said Gupta, who has been critical of corruption and the government's policy drift. "If they were openly confrontational of me, they'd go nowhere, so they're trying this."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Attempts to access his Twitter page Thursday were met with the message: "This website/URL has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to Court orders or on the Directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Even Britain's Queen Elizabeth II has numerous parody accounts so India needs to lighten up, consultant Gupta said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He's received several messages from worried Pakistani friends since the news broke. "They ask if I'm all right, say they hope they haven't frog-marched you to jail," he said. "What irony."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The restrictions are the latest chapter of a crisis that started in July when Muslims and members of the Bodo tribal community in northeastern India clashed over land, jobs and politics. The result: 75 people killed and 300,000 displaced.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Muslims in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, staged a sympathy demonstration last week; two more people were killed and dozens injured.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rumors, hate messages and altered photos of supposed atrocities against Muslims soon spread on social media sites, and several people from northeastern India were beaten in Bangalore and other cities, prompting the crackdown.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">New Delhi has accused Pakistani websites of fanning the online rumors. (Islamabad said it would investigate if there's any proof.) But Indian news media also reported that 20% of the websites blocked contained inflammatory material uploaded by Hindu nationalist groups in India that were apparently trying to stir up sectarian trouble.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Twitter community has responded with derision and humor to limits on text messages on prepaid cellphones.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Feeling deeply insulted that I still have not been blocked," tweeted user @abhijitmajumder. "Victim of govt apathy."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham, head of the Bangalore civic group Center for Internet and Society, said this week's restrictions are the latest in a series of regulations and recommendations aimed at tightening Internet control.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/articles-latimes-com-mark-magnier-aug-23-2012-india-limits-social-media-after-civil-unrest'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/articles-latimes-com-mark-magnier-aug-23-2012-india-limits-social-media-after-civil-unrest</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceIntermediary LiabilityCensorship2012-09-04T11:59:01ZNews ItemSurvey : Digital Natives with a cause?
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/survey-digital-natives-with-a-cause
<b>This survey seeks to consolidate information about how young people who have grown up with networked technologies use and experience online platforms and tools. It is also one of the first steps we have taken to interact with Digital Natives from around the world — especially in emerging information societies — to learn, understand and explore the possibilities of change via technology that lie before the Digital Natives. The findings from the survey will be presented at a multi-stakeholder conference later this year in The Netherlands.
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<p>The Centre for Internet and Society, in collaboration with Hivos' Knowledge Programme, launched the "Digital Natives with a Cause?" Programme in 2008. After the initial study (<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/publications/cis/nishant/dnrep.pdf/view" class="external-link">click here for a free download</a>), we are now gathering responses from young users of technology to help us understand, document and support different practices aimed at social transformation and political participation more efficiently.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We believe that the world is changing very fast and that the rise of Internet technologies has a lot to do with it. As young users of technology (as opposed to young users who use technology) adopt, adapt and use these new technologised tools to interact with their environment, new ways of effecting change emerge. This survey is an attempt to capture some of the information which gives us an insight into who the people are, using these technologies, the ways in which they use them and what their perceptions and experiences are.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The survey will not take more than 7 minutes of your time but it will help us get a better sense of the way things are.</p>
<p> </p>
<strong>Please click here so start the
<a href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dG9reUVvQ0w4d1ZER3lKOUtFanZMUnc6MA" target="_blank"> survey</a>.</strong>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/survey-digital-natives-with-a-cause'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/survey-digital-natives-with-a-cause</a>
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No publisherpushpaSocial mediaDigital NativesYouthFeaturedDigital subjectivitiesSocial Networking2011-08-04T10:35:43ZBlog EntryInquilab 2.0? Reflections on Online Activism in India*
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/digiactivprop
<b>Research and activism on the Internet in India remain fledgling in spite the media hype, says Anja Kovacs in her blog post that charts online activism in India as it has emerged. </b>
<p>Since the late 1990s when protesters against the WTO in Seattle used a variety of new technologies to revolutionize their ways of protesting so as to further their old goals in the information age, much has been made of the possibilities that new technologies seem to offer social movements. The emergence of Web 2.0 seems to have only multiplied the possibilities of building on the Internet's democratising potentials, so widely heralded since the rise of the commercial Internet in the 1990s, and since then, the use of social media for social change has received widespread media attention worldwide. From Spain to Mexico, activists used the Internet as a central tool in their efforts to organise and mobilise – be it to express their stand against a war in Iraq, against a Costa Rican Free Trade Agreement with the United States, to mobilise support for the Zapatistas of Chiapas, or more recently, to push for a change of guard in Iran.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In 2009, when Nisha Susan launched the Pink Chaddi campaign, the 'ICT for Revolution' buzz finally seemed to have reached India as well. Phenomenally successful in terms of the attention it generated for the issue it sought to address, the campaign sought to protest in a humorous fashion against attacks on women pub-goers in Karnataka by Hindu right wing elements. In only a matter of weeks, Facebook associated with the campaign – 'The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women', which gathered tens of thousands of members. It was ultimately killed off when Susan's Facebook account was cracked by rivals. The campaign was perhaps the singular most successful account of ‘digital activism’ in India so far, and an impressive one by all measures.</p>
<p>The creativity of the campaign should not come as a surprise to those familiar with the long and rich history of activism for social change in India. Organised social actors have been critical influences in the emergence of new social identities as well as on critical policy junctures from colonial times onwards, developing a fascinating and unmistakably Indian language of protest in the process (see Kumar 1997 and Zubaan 2006 for examples from feminist movement).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As Raka Ray and Mary Faizod Katzenstein (2006) have pointed out, in the post-independence period, such organised activism for long was connected by at least verbal – if not actual – commitment to the common master frame of poverty alleviation and the ending of inequality and injustice, and this irrespective of the particular issues groups were working on. Since the late 1980s, however, a number of far-reaching changes have taken place in India. This period has been marked by the definite demise of secular democratic socialism as the dominant script of the Indian state and its simultaneous replacement by neo-liberalism. Moreover, in the same period, Hindu nationalism as an ideology too has gone from strength to strength, with only in the last five years a slowdown in its ascendancy. While for many traditional social movements of the Left the commitment to social justice remains, in this context a space has undeniably been created for groups with a very different agenda. The considerable popularity of organisations such as Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, both Hindu nationalist organisations, are prime indications of these transformations. However, the fragmentation of the activist space did not only benefit reactionary elements of society. The final emergence into visibility of a well-articulated middle class queer politics, for example, too, may well in many ways have been facilitated by the evolutions of the past 20 years. Although this point has been mostly elaborated in the context of the US (Hennessey 2000), in India, too, this seems to ring true at least in some senses.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The general shape-shifting of activism in India since the 1990s is not the only contextual factor that deserves obvious consideration in a study like this. In addition, since independence a close link has been forged in policy and people's imagination alike between science and technology on the one hand and development paradigms in India on the other. Not everyone agrees on the benefits of this association: all too frequently, the struggles of grassroots social movements are directed precisely against the outcomes or consequences of a supposedly 'scientifically' inspired development policy. The neo-liberal era is no exception to this: as Carol Upadhya (2004) has shown quite convincingly, the economic reform policies that are at the heart of neo-liberalism have been inspired first and foremost by the information technology sector in India, which has also in turn been their first beneficiary. And today as earlier, Asha Achuthan (2009) has pointed out, in the resistance to these policies, the subaltern who is the agent of grassroots social movements is frequently associated with a pre-technological purity that needs to be maintained in order to resist discourses and material consequences of technological change themselves. In popular discourses, at least, attitudes towards technology inevitably come in a binary mode.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Seeing the context in which digital activism in India has emerged, a number of pressing questions regarding the new forms that even progressive activism takes as it adopts new tools and methods, then, immediately offer themselves. Leaving aside the activities of right wing groups in India, who are the actors that occupy this space for activism and what are their relationship with offline activists groups? Which are the issues online activism seeks to address, and what are its master narratives, goals and audiences? Where does it locate problems in today's society, and what kind of solutions does it propose? How does it posit its relation to the global/international and to the offline-local; to dominant understandings of science and technology, development, or desirable social change? How are these understandings reflected in online activism, including in the choice and use of technologies but also in the discourses that are deployed and the audiences that are targeted? What are its methods, its strategies, its ways of organising? What role is played by organisations, collectives, networks, individuals? In what ways is the field marked by the conjuncture at which it emerged? Do those who first occupy (most of) it also set the parameters? Or do its tools fashion online activism's very conditions of existence?</p>
<p>The value of greater insight into these issues is not immediately apparent to all. For one thing, some would argue that, as connectivity in the emerging IT superpower remains limited, the importance of these questions to those concerned with social justice in India is really marginal. It is true that while commercial Internet services have been available in the country since 1995, for long the number of connections remained abysmally low. Even today, the number of subscriptions has only just crossed the 14 million mark, and barely half of these are broadband subscriptions, severely limiting the usefulness of a wide range of potential online activism tools (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India 2009 – figures are for the second quarter of 2009). According to I-Cube 2008 report (IMRB and Internet and Mobile Association of India 2008), there were an estimated 57 million claimed urban Internet users in the country in September 2008 and an estimated 42 million active urban Internet users. Corresponding figures for Internet users in rural areas in March 2008 were 5.5 million and 3.3 million respectively. Almost 88 million Indians were believed to be computer-literate at the time. Clearly, then, online activists are a tiny section of an already fairly small, privileged group, and at least in a direct sense, the availability of new tools is thus indeed unlikely to affect all activists or activism in the country.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Some of my own starting points while embarking on this study may seem to further give fuel to arguments against the value of this research. The idea of investigating online activism in India as it emerges followed from my observation – and a troubling one at that for me – that so far, and despite all the hype internationally, more traditional grassroots movements in India seem to have been slow to embrace the Internet as an integral part of their awareness raising and mobilisation strategies. Although they may attract the largest numbers of activists offline, the many so-called 'new' social movements that have emerged since the 1970s and that remain important actors pushing for social change seem most conspicuous by their relative absence online. This is especially true of those critical of current development paradigms and practices: movements fighting against dams, special economic zones or land acquisitions for “development” purposes seem visible only in relatively fragmented and generally marginal ways. Instead, middle-class actors addressing middle class audiences on middle class issues seem to be the flag bearers of Internet activism in India – the Pink Chaddi campaign or VoteReport India, a “collaborative citizen-driven election monitoring platform for the 2009 Indian general elections” (see votereport.in/blog/about) perhaps among the most well-known illustrations of this argument.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Both points are valid, and yet, while inquilab it may not be, to conclude from this that the study of online activism automatically is of only very limited value would be short-sighted. Indeed, even if the hypothesis that Internet activism is dominated by middle class actors who address middle class concerns is validated (note that in any case considerable segments of the leadership and cadre of grassroots movements, too, tend to come from middle class backgrounds), this is likely to affect all those interested in affecting social change, even if perhaps in varying degrees. For one thing, it would mean that as the public sphere is reshaped, important new quarters of its landscape are inhabited only be the elite, contradicting the still widely popular and even cherished belief (at least among those who are familiar with the Internet) that the Internet is a democratising force. Instead, the proportional visibility in the public sphere of dissenting viewpoints on development, science, neo-liberalism, progress, the state will only decrease. In addition, then, it may also indicate a further refracting of the activism landscape and its master narratives and methods, where different segments of activists increasingly need to vie with each other for recognition and validation of their respective understandings of political processes and of appropriate forms of engaging with these. As such battles intensify it is not too risky to make a prognosis on who will be the main losers. If, in an era in which the old activist master narrative of justice for all remains under strident attack, civil society has come to occupy at the expense of political society (a useful distinction first made by Parth Chatterjee in Chatterjee 2004) a whole arena of activism, this would indeed need to be a cause of concern for all. In order to gauge its ramifications, it is however, crucial to first of all understand in which ways and to what extent this statement rings true.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The current study may well not be able to fully develop all the above and other theoretical strands as they emerge in the course of this research. But what it does promise to do is to outline the breaks and continuities that mark the make-up, strategies, audiences and goals of those who embrace the new possibilities that the Internet provides at the same time as the information age so fundamentally reconstitutes our society. As a starting point for the analysis, this research will therefore, attempt to map the online activism that has taken place in India so far, focusing more specifically on the forms of activism that leave a public record on the Internet (a more extensive debate of various definitional issues is in order – I will take this up in a separate blog post, to follow later, however). At the core of the research will be the construction of a database pertaining to online activism in India with links to email lists, blogs, Facebook groups, popular hash tags and the like. Although much of the activism I will be looking at will be centred around what has come to be known as 'social media', my focus is thus broader than that, as older tools such as e-petitions, discussion boards and list servs, too, will be included in this study. The aim is to be as comprehensive as possible, although for the database to ever be complete will, of course, be an impossibility. Moreover, since only data available in the English language will be collected, the database will automatically have its limitations. The database will be further complemented by interviews with activists who have been involved in key online campaigns and, where appropriate, case studies. It is the data thus gathered that will form the basis of our analysis.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>While the scope of the study is thus admittedly ambitious, the fact that online activism in India is a fairly recent affair – little happened before 2002, and it has only really taken off in the past three years or so – makes this venture not an impossible one. The contribution I hope to make through this research is not simply to work on the Indian context, however. Despite the media hype surrounding the possibilities of the Internet for social change, research on the Internet and activism more generally remains limited so far. The paucity is perhaps particularly acute where activism and social media are concerned (Postill 2009). Moreover, the work that does exist, I argue, tends to look mostly at activists' use of one particular tool, for example YouTube, or Facebook. Sight is thus generally lost of the larger cyberecology of communication in which this use must be located, preventing an opportunity for genuine insight into the ways in which activism is reconfigured from materialising. By using a much wider lens, this research hopes to make a beginning to correcting this lacuna. It is in this way that the importance of the changes that are underway in the Indian activist landscape as elsewhere can be appropriately assessed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><em><strong>*
Inquilab means revolution</strong></em></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><strong>References</strong></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Achuthan, Asha (2009).
Re-Wiring Bodies. Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.
<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/rewiring/review">http://www.cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/rewiring/review</a>,
last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Chatterjee, Partha
(2004). <em>The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular
Politics in Most of the World</em>. Delhi: Permanent Black.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Hennessy, Rosemary
(2000). <em>Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism</em>.
London: Routledge.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">IMRB and Internet and
Mobile Association of India (2008). I-Cube 2008: Facilitating Citins,
Altins, Fortins (Faster, Higher, Stronger) Internet in India. IMRB
and Internet and Mobile Association of India, Mumbai. <a href="http://www.iamai.in/">www.iamai.in/</a>,
last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Kumar, Radha (1997). <em>The
History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women's
Rights and Feminism in India 1800-1990</em>. New Delhi: Zubaan.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Postill, John (2009).
Thoughts on Anthropology and Social Media Activism.
<em>Media/Anthropology</em>,
<a href="http://johnpostill.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/thoughts-on-anthropology-and-social-media-activism/">http://johnpostill.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/thoughts-on-anthropology-and-social-media-activism/</a><a href="http://johnpostill.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/thoughts-on-anthropology-and-social-media-activism/">,
</a>last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Ray, Raka and Mary
Fainsod Katzenstein (2006). Introduction: In the Beginning, There Was
the Nehruvian State. In Raka Ray and Mary Fainsod Katzenstein
(eds.). <em>Social Movements in India: Poverty, Power, and Politics.</em>
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India (2009). The Indian Telecom Services Performance
Indicators, April-June 2009. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India,
New Delhi. <a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/">www.trai.gov.in</a><a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/">,
</a>last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Upadhya, Carol (2004). A
New Transnational Capitalist Class: Capital Flows, Business Networks
and Entrepreneurs in the Indian Software Industry. <em>Economic and
Political Weekly</em>, 39(48): 5141-5151.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Zubaan (2006). <em>Poster
Women: A Visual History of the Women's Movement in India</em>. New
Delhi: Zubaan.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/digiactivprop'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/digiactivprop</a>
</p>
No publishernishanthistories of internet in IndiaSocial mediaDigital ActivismCyberspaceAccess to Medicineinternet and societyResearchCybercultures2011-08-02T09:25:30ZBlog EntryIndia Game Developer Summit Bangalore 2010
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/gaming-and-gold/india-game-developer-summit-in-bangalore-2010
<b>The India Game Developer Conference held at Nimhans Convention Centre on the 27th of February, 2010 was attended by Arun Menon who is working on The Gaming and Gold Project at The Centre for Internet and Society. The Developer forum brought together game developers from different sectors of the Game Production Cycle, with hardware manufacturers like Nvidia demonstrating their latest 3d technology and Software developers like Crytek and Adobe demonstrating the latest in developer tools for creating and editing games on multiple platforms.</b>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The India Game Developer Summit
Lite was sufficiently provocative in showcasing the developer community in
India and the latest advancements made by the corporate sponsors. The presentations
did not appropriately address creative development and management except for a few
made by Keita Iida, Carl Jones, and possibly Varun Nair which stood out for the
specific focus on creativity. The overall focus was on PC gaming with inroads
into Web, mobile, and a smattering of social games. Console Gaming was present in a few statistics presented but did not figure elsewhere at the conference.</p>
<p><strong>On Presentations</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">One key feature found in the
presentations made by Carl Jones, Keita Iida, and Varun Nair at IGDS was the
focus on creating immersive environments and naturally all the three took
different approaches suiting their areas of specialization. The other
presentations bordered on marketing and sales pitches, promoting the presenters'
products, and were not sufficiently detailed other than pushing the presenter’s
products and services. These three presentations stand out for their focus on
creativity in game development, design, and research with data pertaining to
the industry and not limited to their products or companies.</p>
<p><strong>Carl Jones –
Envision, Enable, Achieve.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Carl Jones from Crytek made an
excellent keynote speech with a focus on their latest advancement; the CRYENGINE
3.0. A demonstration video showcased synchronous editing capabilities for
multiple platforms as well as real time 'edit and play' functionality. What you
see is [truly] what you get. Their engine is currently not set for a public
release but can handle textures and fluid rendering with amazing ease on a
standard 500$ machine. The detailed and fluid real-time editing cuts
development time from weeks to a matter of days, not a possibility a few months earlier. The technology targets low end machines and has a higher
market but both Nvidia and Crytek made it clear that their focus for
development is going to be high end devices and technology for high end
machines.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Crytek’s entire focus is on the
development and sustainability of creativity, so that new technology could
provide better rendering at better speeds and visuals. Cryengine 3.0’s capabilities
in developing a truly interactive, immersive, and realistic environment were
demonstrated at the keynote speech. The destructive environments and
fluid/texture rendering made designing and editing seem as simple as using a
brush (convinced of its capabilities as an engine but still skeptic about its
simplicity in user interactivity). The dynamic lighting, downward light shafts,
ocean rendering, view distance, soft shadows and particle rendering (fog, etc)
and its real-time synchronous editing capabilities left no doubt as to
Cryengine 3.0’s superiority in the competitive game developer market.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The keynote speech recognized one
main deficiency in game development, there is a problem incorporating graphics
and realistic physics. Jones showcased how at Crytek, the motto ‘the difficult
takes a day and impossible takes a week’ works. Looking at the developer tools
demonstrated at the summit that motto is quite realistic. Crytek’s focus is to
make everything interactive and the CryEngine 3.0 demonstrates that focus. As a
matter of fact Crytek has incorporated Star Data from NASA into their games.
Star navigation based on the digitally (re)created skies in their games is
possibility. The elements they bring in to build in realism to gaming will be interesting to
follow, since realism often meant higher graphics requirements.</p>
<p><strong>Keita Iida –
Technology and Market Trends in the PC game Industry</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The focused session by Keita Iida
of Nvidia placed the growth of Indian markets in perspective including online markets (and digital releases) and offline growth plotted through hardware sales. The numbers and
statistics presented showcased the strength of the growing gaming market particularly
in Asia. The revenues of the Asia segment in the entire MMOG revenues is 76.6
percent globally, the United States and the West is lagging in terms of revenue
generation in the MMOG segment but their recent growth is set to shoot up to
1.3-1.5 billion USD by 2013. Similar numbers in the social gaming segment was
also reiterated by Sumit Gupta (the CEO and founder of BitRhymes). What they
both articulated differently was that there was tremendous money in gaming both
online and offline and India had sufficient infrastructure to capitalize on the
gaming markets for online as well as offline products and releases.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Keita Iida argued that the online
gaming market in India was in excess of 60 million USD assuming that these
games were serviced locally. This still leaves out contribution from the Indian segment globally, such figures are also hard to plot out. Some of the numbers that Nvidia made available
were from their own sales and marketing statistics. The DX10 capable computers
globally were 171 Million as of 2009 and DX9 capable machines around
102million, which had a Geforce installed base. Keita Iida's statistics pointed
to one thing - the Asian markets were far ahead of the other markets both in online and offline releases. Nvidia as an organization and developer would provide an ideal
space for game developers to reach out to a larger global market provided they
were Nvidia technology compatible. Keita Iida made an effective marketing pitch
for Nvidia and provided enough data and statistics globally and locally as well
as company specific data that made the presentation more accessible. This
presentation was one of the few that involved industry movements and statistics
with a focus on creative development.</p>
<p><strong>Varun Nair - Quality Asset Creation & Sound as a
Storyteller</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The most creative presentation
was perhaps the one made by Varun Nair on 'Sound as Storytelling and Quality Asset
creation'. We had interacted prior to the conference as well as during the
presentation and he provided a lot of information on the pre- and post-production cycles where sound design and incorporation was most effective. His
presentation was remarkably different and stood out from the others largely
because his focus was not on pushing his own projects or company agenda, rather
he attempted to place the relevance of the sound design industry in the
creative processes of the game’s design stages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The session focused on the
relevance of sound and visuals and the effective placement and modulation of
sound to the visuals to communicate the desired effect. The main example used was an
FPS where the ambient sounds and the player sounds had to be placed in
perspective with the enemy sounds to create an immersive environment. This translates into sounds being modulated and dynamic as gameplay progresses to effectively create immersive structures. The lack
of this immersive effect will create confusion and destroy the effect even if
the visuals are designed effectively. This is interesting largely because if
you hear gunfire not represented in your visuals - as a character - you’re able to react
effectively to the enemy based on sound alone. Quite a few games use this
strategy to provide and create an immersive structure. There was a good
emphasis on the development of sound particularly since it enables a certain
human emotional response to that sound and developers of successful AAA games
have used this strategy to create emotional engagement of the player with the game narratives. Varun Nair also pointed
out the relevance of sound in making connections and here he mentioned using
real world sounds and digitally created and re-engineered sounds. The effects he
demonstrated with a training exercise, where he played out real world sounds
and enhanced sounds to create a suitable environment. On making connections with
the ‘experiential residual narrative’ as the Videogame theorist Henry Jenkins
would put it, Varun Nair pointed out how sound design is created effectively to
cater to certain specific feelings encountered before. Artificial sounds are
specifically created to suit the artificiality of an environment and here he
used the example of ‘Transformers’, the movie to explain artificial sound
effects as well as information overload. The focus of designed sounds is
largely towards creating an environment in which the main focus is to reiterate
the environments artificiality largely used in Sci-Fi media and gaming.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Most sound designers only receive
images and they have to create sounds often from scratch to suit the
environment. In his demonstrations he showcased the kind of creativity that
sound designers and engineers are capable of in designing the environments we
hear and interact with in gaming simulations. Varun Nair also focused on
Information Overload and how the effective blend of sound and visuals would
form an ideal blend to counter this overload. He went has far as saying that at
certain points an underload was preferred since there was less player fatigue
due to overload. The design structures have to be suitably different
particularly for non linear media such as gaming. Varun Nair mentioned the
cocktail party effect where the human mind is able to focus on a few important
sounds and tune out the rest as well as the 2.5 theme rule. The 2.5 theme rule emphasizes the perfect Balance between Visuals, Audio, and Sound effects. Among
others were quality asset creation and the involvement of the sound designer in
the early stages of the game to capitalize on creative development.</p>
<p><strong>Sumit Gupta from
BitRhymes and Hemant Sharma from Adobe</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The presentation by Sumit Gupta
was very detailed, with a focus on audience interactivity. The data Sumit used
was excellent and placed the entire scenario in perspective; perhaps the
overwhelming response to his presentation may have overwhelmed him a little.
The data on social gaming in India and the lack of monetization in the current
market scenario and the possibilities of monetization was explored in detail.
The problem if any was in setting up these structures and infrastructure
backing in India which was lacking. Payment systems and methodologies would
ensure the creation and transaction of virtual goods. The data on the Chinese
and Japanese markets and the Asian and World trends was extremely detailed, so
much so that some of these statistics were scary. Most social gamers do not realize that data is being collected on them as they play and this was
demonstrated in some of the internal statistics that Sumit presented. The
information presented included age groups of the users, their purchasing power,
spending power, and the relationship between the users who trade is almost
totalitarian in terms of information collection. Privacy laws allow that
generic data are collected but the presentation of these data and statistics
reminds the viewer on just how much information is accessible to these
developers. Hemant Sharma’s presentation later was highly technical and
demonstrated the development of games for mobile devices on Adobe Flash CS5
which is currently only out on a beta release. The presentation there also
talked about the ways in which a mobile app could gain access to the OS
features to run better. Most of these features give undue access to the app
developer to geolocationary movement information. Along with access to other
apps which may store generic information which is user specific. This talk shed
light on the amount of access that a mobile app developer has to the
geolocationary and personal data stored on the phone. Although the perspective
was to showcase the functionality of Flash Professional CS5, currently released
as a beta version, details emerged on the kind of easy access a developer has
to change mobile app settings to gather data. The possibilities that a
malicious use of the data would compromise user security emerges strongly when
reflecting on this presentation.</p>
<p><strong>DSKs Presentation –
Sell your Game, Adopt a Game Designer!</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">DSK Supinfogame had a booth at
the India Game Developer Summit along with AIGA the Asian Institute of Gaming
and Animation. DSK’s presentation was to be held by Philippe Vachey but a
change in schedule had another member from DSK make the presentation. Their
focus rested on Gamespot reviews and game journal rankings to showcase the
problems that arise due to the lack of relevant design in games that would
otherwise have been AAA releases. They had some really important points to
make. A 30million USD project is not going to have developers and designers
with one year experience and without a cohesive unit centered on design aspects
a game may as well not make an AAA rating let alone an A or a B rating.</p>
<p><strong>Networking @ IGDS</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Networking at the India Game Developer
Summit was one of the main benefits of the summit. The presentations, other
than the few mentioned here in detail, were largely oriented towards marketing
their own companies and products or sales pitches to this effect. I had already
talked to Varun Nair (from bluefrog presenting Sound as Storyteller and Quality
Asset Creation) prior to meeting him at the conference and discussed mutual
interests in gaming and narrative communication in gaming. Before his
presentation I had the opportunity to get a preview of his presentation and its
main focus on presenting the relevance of sound design and its ideal placement
to create an immersive environment which can be effective or confusing
depending on how the visuals and sounds interact with each other to create an
ideal immersive environment rather than information underload or worse overload
and player fatigue. The discussion also revolved around my current research
project and research interests in the Indian Gaming scene. Varun Nair is based
in Bombay and works for Bluefrog, a company which specialises in sound creation
for games.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Prior to the conference, Rev
Lebaredian and Simon Green from Nvidia Corporation were available at the Nvidia
booth and right after trying out Batman Arkham Asylum in 3D (with the Geforce
3D stereoscopic vision kit); Varun Nair joined us and we discussed my research
interests as well as my project at the Centre for Internet and Society and its
requirements. Rev and Simon were very accessible (not mobbed yet) and gave me a
lot of details on their partnership programs and their products and upcoming
releases. Being engineers they had very little data on the Indian market both
virtual and offline, and the approximate industry revenues. Rev and Simon
offered details on who might have access to the information I needed and told
me some information pertaining to Nvidia might be shared but large part is
internal and not for public access.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The interaction with Kiran was
the most productive and engaging we discussed games of mutual interest and the
goldfarming activities on his own server (one of the highest bids on eBay for
an account on his server was above 566 pounds [GBP]) he also focused on
goldfarming in India and how that is very little documentation of any sort on
these activities. His own research is on improving design in online games to
provide better retention, higher virality, and immersive environments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Post the key note session, the
opportunity to speak to Philippe Segard and Lionel Chaze from ‘DSK supinfogame’
presented itself. They were designers engaged with game design training and
also had modules that addressed the online gaming segment. On hearing about my
project they assumed that I was adopting a critical theory approach to a single
game and its content and examining only that (which is also something I am
doing as a part of my research read more on <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/gaming">my blog</a>).
I explained some of my research interests and those of the project in examining
the gaming ecosystem in India both virtually and offline, this was more
appealing to both Philippe and Lionel who agreed to give feedback on the
project as it proceeds. Robin Alter from Kreeda Games was available after his
presentation and spoke to me about the future for the Indian markets and the
growth they were expecting in the online as well as offline game segments, as
publishers most of their focus was on offline products. Robin also spoke about
Gold farming in India and how most of it is undocumented and has very little
studies conducted on them particularly in the Indian context. Gold farming
itself is prevalent in India and is not as minor as thought earlier looking at
the responses by Online Server statistics only in India. Playdom’s Business
operations manager Nagabhushan Rao also reiterated that there are cases of gold
farming on their servers and few cases are logged in India as well. However, as
developers they have very few mechanisms to control this activity, largely
since their user base is approximately around 2.5 million (aggregate). He also
happened to mention how Zynga could afford to proactively target such practices
since their large user base would sustain these mitigating blocks. Playdom is
developing a few mechanisms to track such usage and abusage of their credit but
as of early 2010 they have very few mechanisms that would ban player activity
for these practices.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The next Game Developer
Conference is expected around the latter part of this year or early next year.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/gaming-and-gold/india-game-developer-summit-in-bangalore-2010'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/gaming-and-gold/india-game-developer-summit-in-bangalore-2010</a>
</p>
No publisherarunConferenceGamingSocial mediaIGDSRPGGame Developer Conference2010-03-09T16:55:33ZBlog EntryIndia threatens action against Twitter for ethnic violence 'rumors'
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-china-post-aug-24-2012-india-threatens-action-against-twitter-for-ethnic-violence-rumors
<b>India threatened to take action on Thursday against Twitter over content alleged to have inflamed ethnic tensions, as leaked documents revealed the government scrambling to censor online material.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Published in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asia/india/2012/08/24/352011/India-threatens.htm">China Post</a> on August 24, 2012. CIS is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">More than 309 orders have been issued demanding the removal of posts, images and links on websites including Facebook and Twitter as well as Australian news channel ABC, broadcaster Al-Jazeera and London's The Daily Telegraph newspaper.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government has blamed Internet sites for spreading rumors that Muslims would attack students and workers who have migrated from the northeast to live in Bangalore and other southern cities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Tens of thousands of people fled back to India's remote northeast region last week, fearing an outbreak of violence.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government has demanded that Twitter and other social network sites remove “inflammatory and harmful” material. It has also banned bulk text messages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“If Twitter fails to respond to our request, we will take appropriate action,” senior home ministry official R.K. Singh said in the Times of India newspaper. “We have asked the information technology ministry to serve them a notice.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The paper added that the government had set a deadline of Thursday for Twitter to respond.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) research group published analysis of the blocking orders sent by the Department of Telecommunications to domestic Internet services providers from August 18-21.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The CIS said that of the 309 separate items that the government ordered the providers to be blocked, the most affected sites were Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Blogspot.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Content on websites for ABC, Al-Jazeera, The Times of India, The Daily Telegraph and online Catholic portal www.catholic.org were also targeted by the orders, though details of the contentious material are not known.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter representatives were not available to comment, but both Facebook and Google this week said they were in communication with Indian authorities and already had policies banning content that incited violence.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government has complained it was not receiving timely cooperation from social network groups over its attempts to ban “hateful” content.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On Thursday it said Twitter had agreed to remove six fake accounts pretending to be postings by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Officials at Twitter have told us they are reviewing our request ... and they intend to cooperate,” Pankaj Pachauri, the premier's spokesman, told AFP.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-china-post-aug-24-2012-india-threatens-action-against-twitter-for-ethnic-violence-rumors'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-china-post-aug-24-2012-india-threatens-action-against-twitter-for-ethnic-violence-rumors</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionSocial mediaInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-27T02:52:55ZNews ItemInternet expert criticizes Indian cyber blockades
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hosted-2-ap-org-aug-24-2012-internet-expert-criticizes-indian-cyber-blockades
<b>The Indian government's attempts to block social media accounts and websites that it blames for spreading panic have been inept and possibly illegal, a top Internet expert said Friday.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Written by Muneeza Naqvi, this was originally published in <a class="external-link" href="http://hosted2.ap.org/OREUG/86053d8662944f7698388c63189f97c6/Article_2012-08-24-India-Cyber%20Censorship/id-aa810bf90e2c4130bb940d285f2eb5a2">Associated Press</a> on August 24, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Earlier this month, thousands of people from the country's remote northeast began fleeing cities in southern and western India, as rumors swirled that they would be attacked in retaliation for ethnic violence against Muslims in their home state.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Last weekend, the government said the rumors were fed by gory images — said to be of murdered Muslims — that were actually manipulated photos of people killed in cyclones and earthquakes. Officials said the images were spread to sow fear of revenge attacks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After that, the government began interfering with hundreds of websites, including some Twitter accounts, blogs and links to certain news stories. The government also ordered telephone companies to sharply restrict mass text messages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is unclear who has been spreading the inflammatory material. Experts say that despite the government's electronic interference, there are many ways to access the blocked sites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"The government has gone overboard and many of its efforts are legally questionable," said Pranesh Prakash, who studies Internet governance and freedom of speech at The Center for Internet and Society, a research organization in the southern city of Bangalore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The center has published a list of more than 300 Internet links blocked in the last two weeks. These include some pages on Facebook, YouTube and news items on the sites of Al Jazeera, Australia's ABC, and a handful of Indian and Pakistani news sites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On Friday, the Twitter account of Milind Deora, India's junior communications minister, appeared blocked. A message at his (at)milinddeora account said "the profile you are trying to view has been suspended."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Deora told the Press Trust of India news agency that his account was being verified and was only temporarily suspended. PTI said Deora had been tweeting in defense of the government blocking efforts before the account was suspended.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The exodus of people from the northeast followed clashes in Assam state over the last several weeks between ethnic Bodos and Muslims settlers. At least 80 people were killed in that violence and 400,000 were displaced. Most of those who fled were living in Bangalore, where text messages spread quickly threatening retaliatory attacks by Muslims.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Bodos and the Muslim settlers — most of whom arrived years ago from what was then East Pakistan, and which is now Bangladesh — have clashed repeatedly over the decades. But the recent violence was the worst since the mid-1990s.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"The government's highest priority should have been to counter the rumors and it did a really bad job of that," said Prakash, adding that the government should have at least tried to counter the panic through the same social media sites that it was blocking.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government's actions have sparked outrage on social networking sites, with hashtags critical of the government quickly becoming top trending topics on Twitter's India site.</p>
<p>But Prakash was as dismissive of that reaction as he was of the government attempts at censorship.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government's actions reek of "the kind of incompetence one has come to expect," he said, "but the hashtags (hash)Emergency2012 etc. suffer from a lack of perspective, too."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kapil Sibal, the senior minister of communications and information technology, said in a statement that Facebook and Google were cooperating with the government and shutting down some sites that the government had pointed out as objectionable. Sibal said Twitter had also said it was ready to talk with the government.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But he said that "the accusations that we are aggressively targeting someone's account or websites are incorrect."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On Thursday, Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, had told reporters that it was urging the Indian government "to take into account the importance of freedom of expression in the online world" while addressing its security concerns. She said the U.S. was ready to help India's efforts to talk to social networks regarding the issue."</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The above was carried in the following places:</p>
<ol>
<li> <a class="external-link" href="http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-08-24/internet-expert-criticizes-indian-cyber-blockades">Bloomberg Businessweek</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/international/2012/August/international_August802.xml&section=international">Khaleej Times</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/internet-expert-criticizes-indian-cyber-blockades-17071588#.UDr2TdbibFs">ABC News</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><span><a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2018980504_apasindiacybercensorship.html" target="_blank"><span>Seattle Times</span></a> </span>(August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.vancouversun.com/mobile/news/world-news/Internet+expert+criticizes+India+cyber+blockades+wake+ethnic/7139293/story.html">Vancouver Sun</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><span><a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/24/3776866/internet-expert-criticizes-indian.html" target="_blank"><span>Kansas City</span></a>. </span>(August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><span><a href="http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Internet+expert+criticizes+India+cyber+blockades+wake+ethnic/7139293/story.html" target="_blank"><span>Times Colonist</span></a> </span>(August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2012/08/24/2494805_internet-expert-criticizes-indian.html">Merced Sun-Star</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://news.yahoo.com/internet-expert-criticizes-indian-cyber-123930580.html">Yahoo News</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2012/08/24/2197739_internet-expert-criticizes-indian.html">SanLuisObispo.com</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.terrorismwatch.org/2012_08_19_archive.html">Terrorism Watch</a> (August 25, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=84590">Sci-Tech Today</a> (August 26, 2012)</li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hosted-2-ap-org-aug-24-2012-internet-expert-criticizes-indian-cyber-blockades'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hosted-2-ap-org-aug-24-2012-internet-expert-criticizes-indian-cyber-blockades</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-28T10:11:44ZNews ItemIndia Bans Mass SMS to Counter Panic
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/blogs-wsj-com-aug-17-2012-shreya-shah-india-bans-mass-sms-to-counter-public
<b>Last year social networking was credited with helping to organize revolutions across the Middle East and with getting normally apathetic middle-class Indians onto the streets to protest corruption.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This article by Shreya Shah was <a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/08/17/indian-bans-mass-sms-to-counter-panic/">published</a> in the Wall Street Journal on August 17, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But in recent days, India has seen a darker side of social networking, as doctored videos of Muslims being attacked and text messages warning of retaliation by Muslims went viral in the wake of <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443570904577546271721787692.html?KEYWORDS=assam+riots">riots in the northeastern state of Assam</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The messages have caused panic among thousands of Indians and spurred attacks and clashes in two cities. In an attempt to calm the situation, India banned the ability to send mass text messages on Friday afternoon, the home ministry press office confirmed. The ban will stay in effect for two weeks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In remarks to Parliament on Friday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, “The unity and integrity of our country is being threatened by certain elements.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The riots in Assam saw clashes between Bodo tribals and Muslim immigrants, beginning in late July, which led to dozens of deaths and displaced tens of thousands of people. On Friday, Abdul Khaleque, press secretary to the chief minister of Assam, told India Real Time that the death toll had risen to 78 as sporadic clashes continued. Of the 400,000 people that had fled their homes, approximately 115,000 had returned home.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As India has struggled this month to bring calm to Assam, flare-ups started taking place in the western city of Pune, while in Bangalore, thousands of northeastern workers began <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/08/16/bangalore-urges-northeastern-workers-to-remain/">fleeing the city</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mobile phone messages saying that northeasterners had been killed in Bangalore have been circulating since Sunday, said Dilip Kanti, a 24-year-old law student from Mizoram who has lived in the city in the southern state of Karnataka for six years.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The messages warned that we should leave the city before the day of Eid,” he added. Monday, Aug. 20, is an official holiday for Eid, the festival that marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Karnataka state government and the police have said that this is a hoax message and that they are investigating the source of these messages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The messages appear to be intended to panic northeasterners, send large numbers of them back to their home state, and foster fear of Muslims. Those developments could set the stage for sectarian riots, always a concern in a country that has seen such clashes break out frequently.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The home minister has said an inquiry is underway. But so far officials have not shared information about the source of these messages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Presently, Indian companies that send mass text messages need to register to do so. But there’s no bar on individual users sending mass messages. A<a href="http://www.cnngo.com/mumbai/life/travel-e-ticketing-agencies-exempted-new-sms-caps-953755"> limit of 100 messages</a>per user per day was imposed last year in an attempt to reduce spam and later increased to 200, but this was <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2012/07/223-implications-of-delhi-high-courts-removal-of-the-200-sms-per-day-limit-in-india/">overturned by the courts</a> in July.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Text messages are the “most potent weapon of rumor,” said <a href="http://www.jsgp.edu.in/JSGPFaculty/ShivVisvanathan.aspx">Shiv Visvanathan</a>, a professor at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy in Haryana. “They can multiply a few thousand times in a minute.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has been aware of the danger of high-tech rumor-mongering. When the verdict on the contested religious site of the <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/tag/babri-masjid-verdict">Babri Masjid</a> in Uttar Pradesh state was due in 2010, the Indian government temporarily banned the ability to send mass text messages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But this time, with a new home minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, who has only been in the job for a little more than two weeks, India was slower to act. It wasn’t till Friday afternoon – after the messages had been circulating for nearly a week – that India banned mass text messaging.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But by Wednesday, students and workers from the northeast who were living in Bangalore, where these messages circulated, were rushing to the train station to head home. On Thursday alone, two special trains were scheduled to take 6,000 people back to Guwahati, the capital of Assam.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some of them had already experienced personal run-ins with Muslims upset about the riots in Assam. A 21-year-old student from the state of Nagaland, who didn’t want his name used, said that he is “sick of receiving these messages with rumors.” Apart from the messages, he said that he had been threatened twice in Bangalore by Muslims in the last five days but did not want to return to Nagaland and miss classes. His mother, on the other hand, is fearful for his safety and is forcing him to come back. His roommates have already left. “I will stay till Ramadan and if the situation doesn’t get better I will have no option but to leave,” he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The messages have gained potency from the fact that there have been some attacks on northeasterners in parts of India; these attacks too seem to have been intentionally instigated online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Videos were doctored to show Muslims being tortured purportedly by ethnic Assamese, Pune police inspector Prasad Hasabnis told India Real Time.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“These incited the youth,” he added.</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-UF266_ismsba_D_20120817073659.jpg" /></th>
<td>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Four students from the northeastern state of Manipur were <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3765708.ece">attacked in Pune</a> by young Muslim men in three separate incidents in the last week as a result, he said. In <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443537404577583143397317210.html">Mumbai</a>, meanwhile, two people were killed and 65 injured after a protest over the suffering of Muslims in Assam turned violent.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A group called the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena (Bhagat Singh’s Revolution Army) has been spreading some of the rumors, said Laurence Liang, a researcher with the Alternate Law Forum, a Bangalore-based human rights group that also advocates free speech.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Liang said the group put up a post on Facebook that remained up until Wednesday. It said that a fatwa has been issued by the Muslims against people from the northeast and provided telephone numbers that didn’t work, he added. The Alternate Law Forum complained about the post to Facebook and it has since been taken down, he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Technology is a double-edged sword,” says Mr. Liang. A few people use it to “rip up a frenzy of emotion by spreading rumors,” he says. He added that it didn’t help that “people in the United States and the United Kingdom, sitting in the safety of their homes, reply provocatively on social media, unaware of the consequences they unleash.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of course, some people are trying to use Twitter and Facebook to counter the rumors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">American Enterprise Institute resident fellow <a href="http://twitter.com/dhume01">Sadanand Dhume</a> tweeted on Friday that a video purporting to show violence in Assam was actually footage from Indonesia.</p>
<p>“I lived in Indonesia so recognized the policeman’s uniform, batik sarong & writing on baseball cap. Must be many more fake videos out there,” he said. (Mr. Dhume is an opinion columnist for The Wall Street Journal in India.)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And in a message on Facebook, Walter Fernandes, head of the North-Eastern Social Research Centre, said northeastern and Muslim associations were meeting in Bangalore to figure out how to quell the rumors, and that people shouldn’t give in to panic. Muslim leaders have promised to speak about the situation and the need to protect people from the northeast in their sermons, Mr. Fernandes wrote.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian government last year attempted to censor social networking site like Facebook, arguing inflammatory content on the site could lead to violence in India. Facebook, Google and several other Internet firms are presently <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304537904577277263704300998.html">on trial in India</a> for failing to remove offensive material from their sites in response to complaints. This month’s developments could help the government make a stronger case for censoring these sites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But Pranesh Prakash, of the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society, says that greater regulation will not solve the problem. What he says is needed are proactive statements by the government and rigorous fact-checking by the media, especially regional news channels.</p>
<p>The only way of “countering rumors is by fact,” he said.</p>
<p><i>– Preetika Rana contributed to this post.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/blogs-wsj-com-aug-17-2012-shreya-shah-india-bans-mass-sms-to-counter-public'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/blogs-wsj-com-aug-17-2012-shreya-shah-india-bans-mass-sms-to-counter-public</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-27T07:29:59ZNews ItemNortheast exodus: Is there a mechanism to pre-screen social media content?
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-merinews-com-wahid-bukhari-august-23-2012-northeast-exodus
<b>The government has passed the blame buck on social media and blocked hundreds of websites, which it claims, hosted hate speech and inflammatory content, enough to incite violence. But is it feasible to pre-screen objectionable or provocative content, and reject it before posting so that there is no chance of such rumours?
</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Wahid Bukhari was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.merinews.com/article/northeast-exodus-is-there-a-mechanism-to-pre-screen-social-media-content/15874014.shtml">published in merinews</a> on August 23, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government took the action after Home Minister RK Singh alleged that the exodus of northeastern people from southern states such as Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune was a result of the panic and rumours created because of the content uploaded on these websites, many according to him were created by elements across the border in Pakistan. Though many suspected that Mr Singh's claim was an excuse to save the government from its inefficiency in controlling the riots, and the exodus of the northeastern people who were seen boarding the trains to their home states with their belongings amid fears of reprisal attacks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Was the action meant to pass on the inefficiency buck or not - the government has, at least, managed to shift the focus of the media from exodus to the debate - as to whether social networking sites or websites promoting hatred should be blocked or not - given the democratic rights of every citizen to freedom of speech and expression.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Around a hundred more websites have been reported promoting hate speech and <a href="http://www.merinews.com/topics/business/Google">Google</a>, <a href="http://www.merinews.com/topics/business/facebook">Facebook</a> and other social networking sites like <a href="http://www.merinews.com/topics/business/Twitter">Twitter</a> have been asked to remove such content as soon as possible but in this whole debate one question remains unanswered: How does removing a post from Twitter or Facebook make a difference, several hours after it was published? One might argue even an hour is enough for an inflammatory picture or comment to incite violence or hatred. As a consequence, one might demand that a comment is screened before it is posted on a website, otherwise it doesn't serve any purpose.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Whether pre-screening is technically possible, Pranesh Prakash maintains: "Given the amount of content uploaded on the larger social networks, pre-screening content is just not possible, while removal upon complaint is. They don't have editors like newspapers do; importantly, they shouldn't."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Perhaps, a mid way is to intervene prior to registration on social media websites. All those who register should be made aware of the content that's not permissible, and make them aware of relevant laws and repercussions of breaking them if their complicity is proved. Similarly, these sites can be asked by the Indian government to continuously remind registered users as well as general public, through mass media advertizing, about what kind of content is not permissible. The government, from its side, can strengthen cyber laws to empower sites such as Facebook and Twitter to curb posting of provocative content due to presence of these stringent laws.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Terming the government action unfortunate, Mr Prakash who is a programme manager with the Bangalore-based research and advocacy group, The Centre for Internet and Society believes that government botched up at so many levels. “I don't think the government should be going after Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter. It should be going to them, to work with them on removing content,” Mr Prakash suggests. "The larger social networks have dedicated complaints mechanisms, which the government could have asked them to run 24x7 for a few days, and to expedite that process, and both complained itself and asked the public to use the complaints process,” he adds.<br /> <br /> Though Pakistan has rubbished the claims that it has any role in fomenting trouble, but it has also asked the Indian government to provide it with evidence so that it could nab the accused. Whether or not there is any evidence is a secondary question, the primary blame will always rest with both the state and central governments who failed to stop the exodus of fear-stricken people from the northeast.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Experts like Mr Prakash are wondering why the government didn't pay back in the same coin by using the social media to dispel the rumours. “It is a pity that they notified a new policy to encourage governmental use of social media only today; they sorely needed it this last week,” Mr Prakash rues.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government has blocked content related to thirty Twitter accounts but another surprising thing is that only accounts using the web interface have been blocked, and such accounts can still be accessed on BlackBerrys or other smartphones.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The only visible thing government did on ground when the exodus started taking place in Bangalore was the setting up of helplines but did they help in preventing the exodus - there are enough reasons to believe against it. "There were some complaints that the people attending some of these helplines could only speak in Kannada, and not the English or Hindi that people calling for help were expecting. Even such positive steps were executed badly." Mr Prakash informs.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-merinews-com-wahid-bukhari-august-23-2012-northeast-exodus'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-merinews-com-wahid-bukhari-august-23-2012-northeast-exodus</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaIT ActSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-09-04T04:06:46ZNews ItemIs the govt caught in the 'censorship' web?
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ndtv-com-we-the-people-aug-26-2012-is-the-govt-caught-in-the-censorship-web
<b>NDTV aired a one-hour debate on censorship in "We the People" episode hosted by Barkha Dutt on August 26, 2012. Pranesh Prakash participated in the discussions as a speaker.</b>
<p>Pranesh Prakash responded to Barkha Dutt's question on what does a government do in a time of social unrest:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"I think in a time of social unrest there is leeway provided in laws for the government to take action. The law existing and the law allowing for it is a very different matter from the government actually making use of it. There are as shown in the United Kingdom, much better ways of combating situations of riots. As we have seen in India for instance, there are people who provoke riots from podiums yet don't get arrested and as we have seen in the UK, there are people who take part in riots and have been punished a great deal."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Video</b></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-0f0_yG2gVE" width="320"></iframe></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">See the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/we-the-people/is-the-govt-caught-in-the-censorship-web/244248">full debate</a> on NDTV</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ndtv-com-we-the-people-aug-26-2012-is-the-govt-caught-in-the-censorship-web'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ndtv-com-we-the-people-aug-26-2012-is-the-govt-caught-in-the-censorship-web</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceVideoCensorship2012-09-04T06:54:25ZNews ItemIndia Debates Misuse of Social Media
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-voanews-com-aug-21-2012-anjana-pasricha-india-debates-misuse-of-social-media
<b>India has blocked more than 250 websites after provocative online content spread panic among people from the country's northeast, prompting some of them to flee Indian cities. The crackdown has sparked a debate about how the country will cope with misuse of social media. </b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anjana Pasricha's article was originally published by <a class="external-link" href="http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/08/22/2012082200496.html">Voice of America</a> on August 21, 2012 and re-posted in the <a class="external-link" href="http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/08/22/2012082200496.html">Chosunilbo</a> on September 4, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Officials say the websites that were blocked had posted edited images and videos of victims of earthquakes and claimed they were those of Muslim victims caught in recent ethnic strife in India's northeastern Assam state and Burma.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As the images went viral, rumors began about reprisal attacks against Hindu migrants from the northeast working in other parts of India. Hate text messages warning of violence circulated widely. Worried about their safety, thousands of the migrants fled Indian cities last week to return to Assam.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Taken aback by the mass exodus, the government says the "unity and integrity of the country is at stake."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde says that "elements" had used social networking sites to whip up communal sentiments. Shinde says a number of the sites had been uploaded from Pakistan. Shinde adds that the government has gathered a lot of evidence through the investigation, whether from Facebook communication or text messaging.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Officials have also blamed social networking sites such as Twitter, Yahoo and Facebook for not screening objectionable content.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Cyber specialists say the government needs to go beyond the blame game and learn how to manage misuse of social media on the massive scale witnessed last week. About 100 million people in India use the Internet, the third-largest number of net users in the world. About 700 million people have mobile phones.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Cyber law expert, lawyer Pawan Duggal says this is the first time the Internet and mobile-phone technology have been used to incite fear in a community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"India has to wake up to the need of putting cyber security as the number-one priority for the nation," Duggal noted. "Unfortunately, India does not even have a cyber-security policy. The nation does not have any plan of action, should such an emergency happen again. India needs to have its own cyber army of cyber warriors."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government has been involved in a dispute with web companies such as Google and Facebook for several months and has called for them to devise a voluntary framework to keep offensive material off the web. India routinely asks these companies to remove what it calls "objectionable content," which has led to fears India may be diluting web freedom.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham heads the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore, an advocacy group for net freedom. He says the government's recent crackdown on hundreds of websites is warranted, but says it needs to be more sophisticated and aggressive in handling threats and rumors emanating from the internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Social media websites and other Internet intermediaries should have been asked by the government to run banner advertising or some other form of messaging that revealed the lack of truth in the rumors that were circulating," Abraham explained. "The best way to deal with misinformation is to produce more accurate and more credible information. By just blocking access to fraudulent information, you do not fully undermine the power of rumors because by the time the government had decided to act the photographs and videos had already gone viral. And even though the websites are blocked these images will continue to circulate."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The exodus of northeast migrants from Indian cities has slowed in recent days as India has moved to block multimedia and bulk text messaging, and panic has subsided after repeated assurances of safety by the government.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-voanews-com-aug-21-2012-anjana-pasricha-india-debates-misuse-of-social-media'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-voanews-com-aug-21-2012-anjana-pasricha-india-debates-misuse-of-social-media</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-09-04T12:13:21ZNews ItemPolitical war on the web
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-tehelka-com-kunal-majumder-tehelka-magazine-vol-9-issue-36-sep-8-2012-political-war-on-the-web
<b>Twitter is not only the ‘people’s voice’. It is also a forum for orchestrated propaganda.Kunal Majumder tracks the BJP-Congress online duel.</b>
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<p>Kunal Majumder's article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.tehelka.com/story_main53.asp?filename=Ne080912Political.asp">published</a> in Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 36, Dated 08 Sept 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
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<p>New battlelines Digvijaya Singh (left) and Sushma Swaraj are active tweeples<br />Photos: Shailendra Pandey</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ON 27 August, as the Congress and the BJP battled it out in Parliament and later through news conferences, the story on Twitter was a bit different. Congress supporters, who had been at the receiving end of the ‘Coalgate’ issue so far, finally started hitting back. Adopting a strategy they had so far been accusing right-wingers of, they launched into an all-out attack on anyone who supported the BJP. Every tweet was hashtagged with #RIPBJP. At the end of the day, #RIPBJP was trending, making it the most successful Congress campaign against the BJP — a first on Twitter.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The social media battle against the BJP has just begun,” says a Congress supporter associated with the new project. “In the days to come, you will see our volunteers in a more combative mode.” However, he says it will not “replicate the negative campaign of the right-wing”.<br /><br />The Congress’ social media strategy is spearheaded by its tech-savvy General Secretary Digvijaya Singh. On Twitter for nearly nine months, Singh has been readying to take on the BJP on its own turf and influence the ‘voice of people’. Though serious doubt remains about how much of this voice is real and how much is a result of political propaganda.<br /><br />The push for the Congress to take the battle online comes from the recent ‘banning’ of Twitter handles of BJP sympathiser and senior journalist Kanchan Gupta. While the government insists that the handles were blocked due to security issues, Gupta claimed political martyrdom and launched a tirade against the Congress for imposing a second Emergency. Hashtags like #Emergency2012 and #GOIBlocks started trending, with BJP supporters turning their display pictures to black. "The fact remains none of the blockings were politically motivated,” says Pranesh Prakash, programme manager with Centre for Internet and Society. Prakash instead points to the UPA’s earlier request to IT companies like Google and Facebook to pull down certain pages, which displayed morphed photos and cartoons of Congress “functionaries” as clear example of politically motivated intervention.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Though no explanation was forthcoming from the government as to why specific handles were blocked temporarily through ISPs (Twitter has still not blocked them), the PMO issued a statement saying it has requested Twitter to take “appropriate action against six persons impersonating the PMO”. Certain handles like @PM0India (with a ‘zero’) were often accused of impersonating the actual @PMOIndia. But that’s another story.</p>
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#Emergency2012 and #GOIBlocks started trending, <br />with various BJP supporters turning their display pictures to black
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<td style="text-align: justify; ">The day Gupta’s handle was ‘blocked’, former bureaucrat B Raman wrote a blog that gave an interesting insight into why the government might have targeted Gupta. Raman describes a meeting that took place in Ahmedabad in 2008 — just before the 2009 General Elections — attended by senior BJP leaders and sympathisers, including Gupta. Raman says the general feeling among BJP participants was that mainstream media was not giving enough opportunities to the BJP and other right-wing activists to air their views. Therefore, “it was suggested by some participants that the BJP could get over this handicap by making good use of the online media”. Raman goes on to point that supporters of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other right-wingers have since then used online media superbly with help of IT-savvy Hindutva supporters.</td>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">What Raman wrote in his blog is confirmed by the BJP’s IT Cell Convener, Arvind Gupta. The BJP was not only the first political party in India to have a website in 1999, its social media network has been way ahead of any other political group in the country. From posting updates to engaging users, it has a well-oiled social media machinery in place. Arvind calls this the “listen, engage and inform” model. This includes Internet TV, YouTube and messenger chats. In fact, the next big thing on the party’s social media agenda is the interaction with Narendra Modi on Google+ Hangout.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Poli-Tweeting</b></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Poli-Faking</b></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">BUT IT is not political agenda that has left Digvijaya Singh singed. Speaking to TEHELKA, Singh points to abusive — and at times, factually incorrect — tweets posted by right-wing supporters. In many cases, the mere mention of anything against Modi or Baba Ramdev would have scores of right-wing supporters bombarding Twitter timelines with counter-criticism, and often, abuses. “Anything that incites hate is a problem,” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Though what can be called ‘hate’ is a very subjective matter, Arvind Gupta feels social media reflects the mood of the young population. “People call themselves Internet Hindus. We, as a party, have nothing to do with this. People are so passionate about Modi that they take up his case (against anyone who posts anti-Modi tweets),” says Gupta. He also points towards a similar trend when it comes to people tweeting against Team Anna.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many right-wing Twitter users are accused of posting sponsored tweets against specific people who they believe are anti-BJP. This accusation has not been proven so far, though many users claim to have tracked interaction between rightwing Twitter users on coordinated attacks on users with liberal or pro-Congress ideologies. “There is a belief — and let me tell you that it is wrong — that we hire people,” says Gupta. So can the high number of right-wing users be put down to an ideological stance alone? Gupta says it’s got to do with understanding politics better. “Our volunteers are generally more educated and understand the the Congress’ wrong policies. That category also forms a major part of the ecosystem in this new media,” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Within minutes of talking to this correspondent, Gupta posts a new hashtag on Twitter — #MotaMaal — taking a cue from Sushma Swaraj’s accusation of corruption against the Congress in the coal scam. The next day, Twitter became all about #MotaMaal versus #RIPBJP. Handles like @BJP0fficials and @PMAdvani have been created to counter the right wing. Clearly, Congress supporters are hitting back even at the risk of adding to the cacophony of an already-chaotic medium.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Kunal Majumder is a Principal Correspondent with Tehelka</i>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-tehelka-com-kunal-majumder-tehelka-magazine-vol-9-issue-36-sep-8-2012-political-war-on-the-web'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-tehelka-com-kunal-majumder-tehelka-magazine-vol-9-issue-36-sep-8-2012-political-war-on-the-web</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-09-05T05:27:24ZNews Item