The Centre for Internet and Society
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open video summit
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Open%20Video%20Summit..jpg'>http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Open%20Video%20Summit..jpg</a>
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No publisherradhaSocial media2009-11-19T07:04:40ZImageOnline Pre-Censorship is Harmful and Impractical
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/online-pre-censorship-harmful-impractical
<b>The Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal wants Internet intermediaries to pre-censor content uploaded by their users. Pranesh Prakash takes issue with this and explains why this is a problem, even if the government's heart is in the right place. Further, he points out that now is the time to take action on the draconian IT Rules which are before the Parliament.</b>
<p>Mr. Sibal is a knowledgeable lawyer, and according to a senior lawyer friend of his with whom I spoke yesterday, greatly committed to ideals of freedom of speech. He would not lightly propose regulations that contravene Article 19(1)(a) [freedom of speech and expression] of our Constitution. Yet his recent proposals regarding controlling online speech seem unreasonable. My conclusion is that the minister has not properly grasped the way the Web works, is frustrated because of the arrogance of companies like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. And while he has his heart in the right place, his lack of knowledge of the Internet is leading him astray. The more important concern is the<a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/RNUS_CyberLaw_15411.pdf"> IT Rules</a> that have been in force since April 2011.</p>
<h3>Background <br /></h3>
<p>The New York Times scooped a story on Monday revealing that Mr. Sibal and the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/">MCIT</a> had been <a class="external-link" href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/india-asks-google-facebook-others-to-screen-user-content/?scp=2&sq=kapil%20sibal&st=cse">in touch with Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft</a>, asking them to set up a system whereby they would manually filter user-generated content before it is published, to ensure that objectionable speech does not get published. Specifically, he mentioned content that hurt people's religious sentiments and content that Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor described as <a class="external-link" href="http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/i-am-against-web-censorship-shashi-tharoor_745587.html">'vile' and capable of inciting riots as being problems</a>. Lastly, Mr. Sibal defended this as not being "censorship" by the government, but "supervision" of user-generated content by the companies themselves.</p>
<h3>Concerns <br /></h3>
<p>One need not give lectures on the benefits of free speech, and Mr. Sibal is clear that he does not wish to impinge upon it. So one need not point out that freedom of speech means nothing if not the freedom to offend (as long as no harm is caused). There can, of course, be reasonable limitations on freedom of speech as provided in Article 19 of the <a class="external-link" href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm">ICCPR</a> and in Article 19(2) of our Constitution. My problem lies elsewhere.</p>
<h3>Secrecy <br /></h3>
<p>It is unfortunate that the New York Times has to be given credit for Mr. Sibal addressing a press conference on this issue (and he admitted as much). What he is proposing is not enforcement of existing rules and regulations, but of a new restriction on online speech. This should have, in a democracy, been put out for wide-ranging public consultations first.</p>
<h3>Making intermediaries responsible <br /></h3>
<p>The more fundamental disagreement is that over how the question of what should not be published should be decided, and how that decision should be and how that should be carried out, and who can be held liable for unlawful speech. I believe that "to make the intermediary liable for the user violating that code would, I think, not serve the larger interests of the market." Mr. Sibal said that in May this year <a class="external-link" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355223687825048.html">in an interview with the Wall Street Journal</a>. The intermediaries (that is, all persons and companies who transmit or host content on behalf of a third party), are but messengers just like a post office and do not exercise editorial control, unlike a newspaper. (By all means prosecute Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft whenever they have created unlawful content, have exercised editorial control over unlawful content, have incited and encouraged unlawful activities, or know after a court order or the like that they are hosting illegal content and still do not remove it.)
Newspapers have editors who can take responsibility for content published in the newspaper. They can afford to, because the number of articles in a newspaper is limited. YouTube, which has 48 hours of videos uploaded every minutes, cannot. One wag suggested that Mr. Sibal was not suggesting a means of censorship, but of employment generation and social welfare for censors and editors. To try and extend editorial duties to these 'intermediaries' by executive order or through 'forceful suggestions' to these companies cannot happen without amending s.79 of the Information Technology Act which ensures they are not to be held liable for their user's content: the users are.
Internet speech has, to my knowledge, and to date, has never caused a riot in India. It is when it is translated into inflammatory speeches on the ground with megaphones that offensive speech, whether in books or on the Internet, actually become harmful, and those should be targeted instead. And the same laws that apply to offline speech already apply online. If such speech is inciting violence then the police can be contacted and a magistrate can take action. Indeed, Internet companies like Facebook, Google, etc., exercise self-regulation already (excessively and wrongly, I feel sometimes). Any person can flag any content on YouTube or Facebook as violating the site's terms of use. Indeed, even images of breast-feeding mothers have been removed from Facebook on the basis of such complaints. So it is mistaken to think that there is no self-regulation. In two recent cases, the High Courts of Bombay (<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/janhit-manch-v-union-of-india" class="internal-link" title="Janhit Manch & Ors. v. The Union of India"><em>Janhit Manch v. Union of India</em></a>) and Madras (<em>R. Karthikeyan v. Union of India</em>) refused to direct the government and intermediaries to police online content, saying that places an excessive burden on freedom of speech.</p>
<h3>IT Rules, 2011 <br /></h3>
<p>In this regard, the IT Rules published in April 2011 are great offenders. While speech that is 'disparaging' (while not being defamatory) is not prohibited by any statute, yet intermediaries are required not to carry 'disparaging' speech, or speech to which the user has no right (how is this to be judged? do you have rights to the last joke that you forwarded?), or speech that promotes gambling (as the government of Sikkim does through the PlayWin lottery), and a myriad other kinds of speech that are not prohibited in print or on TV. Who is to judge whether something is 'disparaging'? The intermediary itself, on pain of being liable for prosecution if it is found have made the wrong decision. And any person may send a notice to an intermediary to 'disable' content, which has to be done within 36 hours if the intermediary doesn't want to be held liable. Worst of all, there is no requirement to inform the user whose content it is, nor to inform the public that the content is being removed. It just disappears, into a memory hole. It does not require a paranoid conspiracy theorist to see this as a grave threat to freedom of speech.
Many human rights activists and lawyers have made a very strong case that the IT Rules on Intermediary Due Diligence are unconstitutional. Parliament still has an opportunity to reject these rules until the end of the 2012 budget session. Parliamentarians must act now to uphold their oaths to the Constitution.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/online-pre-censorship-harmful-impractical'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/online-pre-censorship-harmful-impractical</a>
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No publisherpraneshIT ActObscenityFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityYouTubeSocial mediaInternet GovernanceFeaturedIntermediary LiabilityCensorshipSocial Networking2011-12-12T17:00:50ZBlog EntryOn social media, Modi goes soft
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-specials-coverage-gujarat-assembly-elections-2012-zia-haq-oct-26-2012-on-social-media-modi-goes-soft
<b>“Truth stands on its own; it doesn’t need a prop.” Is this Mahatma Gandhi? No, it’s Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on Twitter. Gujarat’s elections are near, but in the arena of social media, Modi has already won. From over a million subscribers on Twitter to a Facebook page flooded with “likes”, Modi’s net is cast wide. </b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Zia Haq's article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/Specials/Coverage/Gujarat-Assembly-Elections-2012/Chunk-HT-UI-GujaratAssemblyElections2012-DontMiss/On-social-media-Modi-goes-soft/SP-Article10-950251.aspx">published in the Hindustan Times</a> on October 26, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">In political rallies, Modi roars with demagogic speeches. On Twitter, he displays a softer, brooding side: “Powers of the mind are like rays of light.” Only occasionally is a political challenge thrown in: “Delhi Sultanate treats Gujarat like enemy nation but Gujarat will never bow.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A polarising figure still, Modi is often accused of avoiding action to stop a carnage that killed nearly 2,000 people in 2002, mostly Muslims. Yet, he has pulled off a stunning PR strategy on social media to showcase Gujarat as India’s Guandong, a Chinese province with top GDP rankings. Gujarat has posted robust growth rates, although its human-development indicators remain skewed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Modi became the third politician globally, after Obama and the Australian PM, to host a political conference on Google+ hangout, a video chat platform. In the past quarter, he added nearly 24,000 Twitter subscribers every 12 days, according to twittercounter.com.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Modi has leveraged social media in a way the Congress hasn’t been able to. Unlike him, none among the Congress’s leadership, including Rahul Gandhi, has a personal Twitter account. “Our leaders believe more in transparent dialogues with the public, rather than spreading Internet canards,” said Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shashi Tharoor, a Congress MP with the highest Twitter subscriber base among Indian politicians, attracts mostly the elite, not the masses.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He jibes at his own government with irreverent tweets often making his party frown.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Yet, research shows that social media is more persuasive than television ads. Nearly 100 million Indians, more than Germany’s population, use the Internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of this, the 40 million who have broadband are the ones active on the social media. “Unlike Obama, who used it directly for votes, Indian politicians tend to use social media more to mould public discourse,” says Sunil Abraham, the CEO of The Centre for Internet and Society.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-specials-coverage-gujarat-assembly-elections-2012-zia-haq-oct-26-2012-on-social-media-modi-goes-soft'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-specials-coverage-gujarat-assembly-elections-2012-zia-haq-oct-26-2012-on-social-media-modi-goes-soft</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionSocial mediaInternet Governance2012-11-02T06:20:13ZNews 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?
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<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>
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<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>
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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>
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No publisherpraskrishnaIT ActSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-09-04T04:06:46ZNews ItemNeed a standard strategy to deal with Web issues: Chandrasekhar
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-surabhi-agarwal-sep-4-2012-need-a-strategy-to-deal-with-web-issues
<b>The government has been facing allegations of Internet censorship for over a year now.</b>
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<p>This article by Surabhi Agarwal was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/09/04231942/Need-a-standard-strategy-to-de.html">published</a> in LiveMint on September 4, 2012. Pranesh Prakash's analysis is quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government said it needed to improve the way in which it dealt with issues such as Internet hate messages besides blog posts and SMSes that seek to create panic so that it’s not accused of trying to gag free speech.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"We all have agreed that we need some combination of self-regulation and government interventions. But we need to do it in a proper way,” said department of telecom secretary R. Chandrasekhar, while addressing a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) conference on the issue of “legitimate restrictions on freedom of online speech".</p>
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<p>The Union government has been facing allegations of censorship after it sought to contain messages that led to communal violence and a panicexodus by people from the north-eastern states in some cities.</p>
<p>Last month, the government ordered the blocking of almost 310 web pages for content deemed to be attacking particular communities. According to a post by Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society, 33% of them were on Facebook, 28% on Google Inc.’s YouTube and around 10% on Twitter.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Defending the government move, Gulshan Rai, chief of the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-in), said it was the first time that the emergency provision of the Information Technology Act 2008 had been exercised. Even though the list was not drawn up by his agency, due scrutiny was carried out before issuing orders to block the sites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This came after allegations that government may have also blocked bona fide posts as it sought to block content related to the North-East.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter accounts of some journalists and other individuals associated with and sympathetic to right-wing causes were blocked, according to a list published earlier by The Economic Times.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"This is certainly not the last time we are seeing such a situation, so meaningful ways to respond to such complex situations will have to be devised," said Chandrasekhar.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He added that there was also a need to collaborate better with all stakeholders to devise not just defensive strategies during a crisis but also ways to contain its impact using the social media.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ankhi Das, head of public policy at Facebook India, said that during the London riots of 2011, the UK government enlisted the support of social networking sites to dispel rumours.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Social media can also be allies of the government at times like this," she said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Raman Jit Singh Cheema, a senior policy analyst at Google India, cited a similar example of authorities in Japan using such methods to send out correct information following the tsunami that hit the country in 2011.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"We need to collaborate on a continuing basis, so that when you are faced with such a crisis, you are able to deal with it," said Chandrasekhar.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government has been facing allegations of Internet censorship for over a year after minister for communication and information technology Kapil Sibal raised the issue of regulating social networking sites. They had allegedly not complied with the government’s demand that offensive content be removed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chandrasekhar said that processes should be clearer, more transparent and well-defined.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"These need to be brought out in the form of some kind of a standard operating procedure, so that they (stakeholders) are expected to know how to conduct themselves and how they can expect the government to deal if a contingency arises," he said.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-surabhi-agarwal-sep-4-2012-need-a-strategy-to-deal-with-web-issues'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-surabhi-agarwal-sep-4-2012-need-a-strategy-to-deal-with-web-issues</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-09-05T08:37:09ZNews 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>
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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 ItemInvisible Censorship: How the Government Censors Without Being Seen
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/invisible-censorship
<b>The Indian government wants to censor the Internet without being seen to be censoring the Internet. This article by Pranesh Prakash shows how the government has been able to achieve this through the Information Technology Act and the Intermediary Guidelines Rules it passed in April 2011. It now wants methods of censorship that leave even fewer traces, which is why Mr. Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology talks of Internet 'self-regulation', and has brought about an amendment of the Copyright Act that requires instant removal of content.</b>
<h2>Power of the Internet and Freedom of Expression</h2>
<p>The Internet, as anyone who has ever experienced the wonder of going online would know, is a very different communications platform from any that has existed before. It is the one medium where anybody can directly share their thoughts with billions of other people in an instant. People who would never have any chance of being published in a newspaper now have the opportunity to have a blog and provide their thoughts to the world. This also means that thoughts that many newspapers would decide not to publish can be published online since the Web does not, and more importantly cannot, have any editors to filter content. For many dictatorships, the right of people to freely express their thoughts is something that must be heavily regulated. Unfortunately, we are now faced with the situation where some democratic countries are also trying to do so by censoring the Internet.</p>
<h2>Intermediary Guidelines Rules</h2>
<p>In India, the new <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR314E_10511%281%29.pdf">'Intermediary Guidelines' Rules</a> and the <a class="external-link" href="http://mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR315E_10511%281%29.pdf">Cyber Cafe Rules</a> that have been in effect since April 2011 give not only the government, but all citizens of India, great powers to censor the Internet. These rules, which were made by the Department of Information Technology and not by the Parliament, require that all intermediaries remove content that is 'disparaging', 'relating to... gambling', 'harm minors in any way', to which the user 'does not have rights'. When was the last time you checked wither you had 'rights' to a joke before forwarding it? Did you share a Twitter message containing the term "#IdiotKapilSibal", as thousands of people did a few days ago? Well, that is 'disparaging', and Twitter is required by the new law to block all such content. The government of Sikkim can run advertisements for its PlayWin lottery in newspapers, but under the new law it cannot do so online. As you can see, through these ridiculous examples, the Intermediary Guidelines are very badly thought-out and their drafting is even worse. Worst of all, they are unconstitutional, as they put limits on freedom of speech that contravene <a class="external-link" href="http://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf">Article 19(1)(a) and 19(2) of the Constitution</a>, and do so in a manner that lacks any semblance of due process and fairness.</p>
<h2>Excessive Censoring by Internet Companies</h2>
<p>We, at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, decided to test the censorship powers of the new rules by sending frivolous complaints to a number of intermediaries. Six out of seven intermediaries removed content, including search results listings, on the basis of the most ridiculous complaints. The people whose content was removed were not told, nor was the general public informed that the content was removed. If we hadn't kept track, it would be as though that content never existed. Such censorship existed during Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union. Not even during the Emergency has such censorship ever existed in India. Yet, not only was what the Internet companies did legal under the Intermediary Guideline Rules, but if they had not, they could have been punished for content put up by someone else. That is like punishing the post office for the harmful letters that people may send over post.</p>
<h2>Government Has Powers to Censor and Already Censors<br /></h2>
<p>Currently, the government can either block content by using section 69A of the Information Technology Act (which can be revealed using RTI), or it has to send requests to the Internet companies to get content removed. Google has released statistics of government request for content removal as part of its Transparency Report. While Mr. Sibal uses the examples of communally sensitive material as a reason to force censorship of the Internet, out of the 358 items requested to be removed from January 2011 to June 2011 from Google service by the Indian government (including state governments), only 8 were for hate speech and only 1 was for national security. Instead, 255 items (71 per cent of all requests) were asked to be removed for 'government criticism'. Google, despite the government in India not having the powers to ban government criticism due to the Constitution, complied in 51 per cent of all requests. That means they removed many instances of government criticism as well.</p>
<h2>'Self-Regulation': Undetectable Censorship</h2>
<p>Mr. Sibal's more recent efforts at forcing major Internet companies such as Indiatimes, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, to 'self-regulate' reveals a desire to gain ever greater powers to bypass the IT Act when censoring Internet content that is 'objectionable' (to the government). Mr. Sibal also wants to avoid embarrassing statistics such as that revealed by Google's Transparency Report. He wants Internet companies to 'self-regulate' user-uploaded content, so that the government would never have to send these requests for removal in the first place, nor block sites officially using the IT Act. If the government was indeed sincere about its motives, it would not be talking about 'transparency' and 'dialogue' only after it was exposed in the press that the Department of Information Technology was holding secret talks with Internet companies. Given the clandestine manner in which it sought to bring about these new censorship measures, the motives of the government are suspect. Yet, both Mr. Sibal and Mr. Sachin Pilot have been insisting that the government has no plans of Internet censorship, and Mr. Pilot has made that statement officially in the Lok Sabha. This, thus seems to be an instance of censoring without censorship.</p>
<h2>Backdoor Censorship through Copyright Act</h2>
<p>Further, since the government cannot bring about censorship laws in a straightforward manner, they are trying to do so surreptitiously, through the back door. Mr. Sibal's latest proposed amendment to the Copyright Act, which is before the Rajya Sabha right now, has a provision called section 52(1)(c) by which anyone can send a notice complaining about infringement of his copyright. The Internet company will have to remove the content immediately without question, even if the notice is false or malicious. The sender of false or malicious notices is not penalized. But the Internet company will be penalized if it doesn't remove the content that has been complained about. The complaint need not even be shown to be true before the content is removed. Indeed, anyone can complain about any content, without even having to show that they own the rights to that content. The government seems to be keen to have the power to remove content from the Internet without following any 'due process' or fair procedure. Indeed, it not only wants to give itself this power, but it is keen on giving all individuals this power. <br /><br />It's ultimate effect will be the death of the Internet as we know it. Bid adieu to it while there is still time.</p>
<p><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/invisible-censorship.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Invisible Censorship (Marathi version)">The article was translated to Marathi and featured in Lokmat</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/invisible-censorship'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/invisible-censorship</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshIT ActGoogleAccess to KnowledgeSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionIntellectual Property RightsIntermediary LiabilityFeaturedInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-01-04T08:59:14ZBlog EntryInternet 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 ItemInternet 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>
<hr />
<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>
<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 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>
<p>
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 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>
<hr />
<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>
<hr />
<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>
<hr />
<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>
<hr />
<p>
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 ItemInquilab 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 EntryIndian mobiles go quiet amid SMS curbs
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ft-com-aug-21-2012-victor-mallet-james-crabtree-indian-mobiles-go-quiet-amid-sms-curb
<b>India’s 900m-plus mobile telephones have fallen unusually quiet since Saturday, when the government curbed text and multimedia messages for 15 days in an attempt to dispel panic among north-easterners fearing attacks from angry Muslims.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This article written by Victor Mallet in New Delhi and James Crabtree in Mumbai was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/91446d40-eb94-11e1-b8b7-00144feab49a.html#axzz24isDQfds">published</a> in Financial Times on August 21, 2012. <i>Additional reporting by Jyotsna Singh in New Delhi. </i>Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The order limiting the number of SMS and MMS messages to five a day from each pre-paid account – which comprise 97 per cent of the market – has disrupted personal communications and threatens to squeeze the revenues of the mobile operating companies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government has also urged social media websites including Facebook and Twitter to remove “inflammatory” content it said had helped spread rumours that caused an exodus of migrants from some cities last week. Access to 245 web pages containing doctored videos and images had been blocked, the government claimed, and the relevant sites told to take the pages down.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indians send more than a billion text messages a day, although it is not clear how many people have been affected by the restrictions or how many of the messages are mass mailings.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Akshat Dwivedi, 20, an undergraduate student at Delhi University, said the restrictions were “a stupid idea”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“How can the government take away something that has become a basic, fundamental need today?” he said. “The ban has affected mostly students who use pre-paid connections because pre-paid connections are cheaper and more affordable for students like us. The ban has hugely disrupted our life. There are many people who rely on text messages because you can’t always call everybody.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Civil rights activists wary of censorship accept that the ban may have been necessary to ease ethnic and religious tensions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“There is the fear that the state will exercise inordinate powers,” said Akila Shivdas, a civil and consumer rights activist. “But regulation and state control are two different things … This is an opportunity to look at regulation seriously.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India’s mobile industry earned about $20bn in revenue last year, of which 15-18 per cent was from data services, according to the Cellular Operators Association of India, a trade body. This suggests operators are set to suffer a loss of about $133m for the 15-day period, according to COAI figures.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“When we are going through the trauma of increased costs, being challenged on revenues does not help,” said Rajan Matthew, COAI director-general. “The government’s heart is in the right place in trying to address this issue ... But when we are fighting for every nickel and dime, this loss is not a small amount.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Other analysts cautioned that the likely revenue impact would be much smaller, noting that most customers bought pre-paid SMS packages. “I’m not saying there will be no loss, but it will not be dramatic”, said Rohit Chordia, a telecoms analyst at Kotak, a Mumbai-based brokerage.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Industry sources and analysts also questioned the government’s decision to impose an extended nationwide ban, rather than experimenting with more limited short-term restrictions targeted to particular trouble spots.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Some kind of limitation on communication was a reasonable step, but restricting everyone to just five per day I don’t think is reasonable at all,” said Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based think tank.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Thousands of north-easterners – physically similar to the Bodo people who have been <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/939f9604-d56a-11e1-b306-00144feabdc0.html" title="India struggles to control Assam riots - FT.com">fighting Muslim migrants over land and political power in Assam </a>– fled from cities such as Bangalore and Hyderabad last week after threats of violence sent by SMS.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Muslims in Mumbai had previously been inflamed by media messages purportedly showing brutality towards their fellow followers of Islam, though the Indian government said some pictures were doctored and had been uploaded from Pakistan.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Events in Bangalore, said Pavan Duggan, a lawyer specialising in IT issues, were “a classic case of mobile cyberterrorism”. He backed the government’s measures despite concerns about censorship. “Obviously there are some rumblings, but these are still small murmurs because everyone is very clear that the national interest will come over [mobile] revenues.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ft-com-aug-21-2012-victor-mallet-james-crabtree-indian-mobiles-go-quiet-amid-sms-curb'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ft-com-aug-21-2012-victor-mallet-james-crabtree-indian-mobiles-go-quiet-amid-sms-curb</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-27T07:15:01ZNews ItemIndian government defends Internet blocking
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/afp-com-aug-23-2012-indian-govt-defends-internet-blocking
<b>India on Friday defended itself against accusations of heavy-handed online censorship, saying it had been successful in blocking content blamed for fuelling ethnic tensions.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Published by <a class="external-link" href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j9Zg_2BZKDQTYM_Mm10RjCze0hsg?docId=CNG.392d5578e0e2c7d8a0f7efa54d2c061b.6b1">AFP</a> on August 23, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government over the past week has ordered Internet service providers to block 309 webpages, images and links on sites including Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, news channel ABC of Australia and Qatar-based Al-Jazeera.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The orders were an effort to halt the spread of "hateful" material and rumours that Muslims planned to attack students and workers who have migrated from the northeast region to live in Bangalore and other southern cities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"We have met with success. These pages were a threat to India's national security and we demanded their immediate deletion," Kuldeep Singh Dhatwalia, a spokesman for India's home ministry, told AFP.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Spreading rumours to encourage violence or cause tension will not be tolerated. The idea is not to restrict communication."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government has blamed Internet activity for fanning fears that resulted in tens of thousands of migrants fleeing back to the northeast last week from Bangalore and elsewhere.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But Twitter users, legal experts and analysts criticised the government's approach, which appeared to have resulted in only partial blocking of material, much of which was still accessible.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"The officials who are trusted with this don't know the law or modern technology well enough," Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Centre for Internet and Society research group, told AFP.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"I hope that this fiasco shows the folly of excessive censorship and encourages the government to make better use of social networks and technology to reach out to people."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Among the blocked content were photographs by AFP and other news agencies from Myanmar in the British Daily Telegraph, a parody Twitter account pretending to be from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and dozens of YouTube videos.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ABC issued a statement saying it was "surprised by the action" after content on its website about unrest in Myanmar between Muslims and Buddhists was included on the blocking list.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India's Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde insisted in a statement the government was "only taking strict action against those accounts or people which are causing damage or spreading rumours."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shinde added that the government sought to block the Myanmar online photos because they were "disturbing the atmosphere here in India."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government said photographs of clashes in Myanmar were circulating on the Internet with fake captions claiming the scenes were from the northeastern Indian state of Assam, where 80 people have died in recent ethnic violence.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Vivek Sood, senior Supreme Court lawyer and an author on Internet legalisation, called the government's step "a gross abuse of power."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"It's completely illegal under the Indian IT Act," he told The Economic Times.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indian journalist Kanchan Gupta, who is often critical of the government, had his Twitter account targeted by a government blocking order in a move he called a "political vendetta".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Al Jazeera webpages on the blocking list, including a report on the exodus from Bangalore, appeared unaffected by the government orders, the channel's Delhi bureau chief Anmol Saxena told AFP.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ministers earlier complained they had not received cooperation from websites and social network groups.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government on Thursday said Twitter had agreed to remove six fake accounts parodying Prime Minister Singh.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The prime minister's office issued a statement on Friday quoting Twitter that they have "removed the reported profiles from circulation due to violation of our Terms of Service regarding impersonation".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">United States State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said as India "seeks to preserve security, we are urging them also to take into account the importance of freedom of expression in the online world".</p>
<hr />
<p>The above was carried in the following places as well:</p>
<ul>
<li><span><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/spectre-of-violence-justified-internet-blocking-indian-officials-say">The National</a> (August 25, 2012)</span><span><a href="http://news.ph.msn.com/sci-tech/indian-govt-defends-internet-blocking" target="_blank"><span></span></a></span></li>
<li><span><a href="http://news.ph.msn.com/sci-tech/indian-govt-defends-internet-blocking" target="_blank"><span>MSN News</span></a> (August 24, 2012) </span><span></span></li>
<li><span><a href="http://www.starafrica.com/en/news/detail-news/view/india-warns-twitter-over-ethnic-violence-249196.html" target="_blank">StarAfrica.com</a> </span><span>(August 24, 2012)</span></li>
<li><span> <a href="http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/international/india-defends-internet-censorship/540161" target="_blank">Jakarta Globe</a></span><span> (August 24, 2012)<br /></span></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/afp-com-aug-23-2012-indian-govt-defends-internet-blocking'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/afp-com-aug-23-2012-indian-govt-defends-internet-blocking</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-28T10:07:50ZNews ItemIndia: Social Media Censorship to Contain ‘Cyber-Terrorism'?
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/global-voices-online-org-aparna-ray-aug-24-2012india-social-media-censorship-to-contain-cyber-terrorism
<b>This is the second post in the 2-part series about the perceived role of social media in the wake of the Assam clashes that spilled across the country and threatened to upset the nation's peace.</b>
<hr />
<p>Written by Aparna Ray. <a class="external-link" href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/08/24/india-strong-reactions-to-social-media-censorship/">This post</a> was published in GlobalVoices on August 24, 2012. Pranesh Prakash's analysis is quoted in this. The first post can be found <a class="external-link" href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/08/23/india-social-media-blamed-for-fueling-unrest/">here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As the Indian government sought to block bulk SMS, MMS, webpages and specific social media urls, justifying its step as an attempt to control viral rumor-mongering and “cyber-terrorism”, there was a lot of discussion on the mainstream media (MSM) about how social media was fast becoming a “<a href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-08-21/social-media/33302561_1_social-media-india-pages-twitter">double-edged sword</a>” and how the recent events brought out the “<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3781473.ece">mischief potential of social media in full play</a>“. These MSM opinions, some of which offered tacit support the idea of reigning in social media, did not go unnoticed by netizens. For example, Media Crooks <a href="http://www.mediacrooks.com/2012/08/assam-azad-maidan-how-msm-sibalises.html#.UDXXsNUe62V">asked</a>:</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">So what’s with the rant against the Twitterati and social media by these media celebs?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/twitter-block.jpg" /></p>
<p>Blogger Amrit Hallan at Writing Cave wondered if the MSM had an underlying motive for creating a hype around the ‘dangers' of social media. He <a href="http://writingcave.com/india-becoming-blockistan/">wrote</a>:</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">People in the mainstream media have always been at loggerheads with the free spirit of social networking websites that empowers everybody to express opinions and spread ideas…(they) have been gleefully recommending the curtailment (of social media). Social networking and blogging continuously make their job hard. The moment they try to spread some misinformation, it is countered by Twitter or blogs with factually correct information, often posted by people close to the ground.</p>
<p>Tweets too expressed similar concerns and sentiments:</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/james_priya/status/237777638712811520">Priya James</a> (@james_priya): I think by now, MSM coverage volumes of 'social media terrorism' has now surpassed even their basic coverage of Assam situation!</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/gauravsabnis/statuses/236586562576596993">Gaurav Sabnis</a> (@gauravsabnis): Politician-MSM nexus in India so blatantly clear with blame for NE rumors laid squarely at social media's doors.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/rajeevnagpal/statuses/237885476080582656">Rajeev Nagpal</a> (@rajeevnagpal): In #India the #MSM can't tolerate any one challenging their hold. No wonder they support censoring social media #HandsOffTwitter</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Things have been moving very quickly. The ISPs have been sent <a href="http://kafila.org/2012/08/23/full-text-the-indian-governments-recent-orders-to-internet-service-providers-to-block-websites-webpages-and-twitter-accounts/">official communication</a> to block webpages and twitter handles, including those of<a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/Govt-blocks-Twitter-accounts-of-some-journalists/articleshow/15612767.cms">some journalists </a>plus <a href="http://www.watblog.com/2012/08/22/the-indian-government-asks-isps-to-block-fake-and-parody-pmo-twitter-accounts/">fake profiles </a>created with the purpose of lampooning the Indian Prime Minister. Curiously, the Pakistani blogger Faraz Ahmed Siddiqui, who was the first to break the news about the morphed photos being used to incite communal tensions, also came under the ambit of censorship and his <a href="http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/12867/social-media-is-lying-to-you-about-burmas-muslim-cleansi/">post</a> was <a href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/425161/india-blocks-tribune-blog-exposing-burma-muslim-killings/">inaccessible</a> on some ISPs.</p>
<p>AEIdeas, a blog from the American Enterprise Institute <a href="http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/08/shooting-the-messenger-in-india/">commented</a> on the issue:</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian government ought to have given Mr. Siddiqui a medal for his investigative work. Instead it has blocked his post.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Social media users in India have been following the government actions closely and there is much<a href="http://www.iphoneeinstein.com/2012/08/21/india-debates-misuse-of-social-media/">debate</a> and <a href="http://www.socialsamosa.com/2012/08/twitter-users-speak-out-on-isp-indian-government-blocking-twitter-accounts/">discussion</a> about whether the crack down on social media is censorship of free speech in the guise of rumor control.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some have termed the government's action as <a href="http://uberdesi.com/blog/2012/08/23/indian-government-enters-new-era-of-censorship/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss">Orwellian</a>/<a href="https://twitter.com/kiranmanral/status/238479576538423296">dystopian</a>. Others have seen <a href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/08/23212045/Views--India8217s-Net-nann.html?h=E">merit</a> in the government's ‘intent' to curb inflammatory content but have been disappointed with the ineffective way the government went about the task - acting as “Net nannies” and “blocking communications, curbing speech, and banning websites”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At CIS India, Pranesh Prakash did an <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analysing-blocked-sites-riots-communalism">analysis</a> of the social media content blocked in India since August 18, 2012. Here are the results:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/social-media-375x243.jpg" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Strong reactions are pouring in on Twitter via trending hashtags such as <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/search/%23GOIBlocks">#GOIBlocks</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/search/Indiablocks">#IndiaBlocks</a>,<a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/search/Emergency2012">#Emergency2012</a> etc. [There is some debate over the use of the word ‘Emergency' and the attempt to draw parallels between the present block and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_%28India%29">state of emergency</a> of 1975, which saw suspension of civil liberties and persecution of journalists in the name of battling threat to national security].</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/reBel1857/status/238480394780024832">Indian Rebellion</a> (@reBel1857): today they r blocking ur twitter account, tomorrow ur bank account and then will lock u in ur home … #GOIBlocks #Emergency2012</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/pranesh_prakash/status/238366067196588032">Pranesh Prakash</a> (@pranesh_prakash): If you oppose #censorship, more power to you! I do too. But calling this #Emergency2012 is ridiculous! #IndiaBlocks #netfreedom</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/madversity/status/238492384210599936">Madhavan Narayanan</a> @madversity): Social media is a modern challenge and a modern opportunity. Government attempts to police it smacks of outdated feudal style #GOIblocks</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/Raheelk/status/238491665944412160">Raheel Khursheed</a>(@Raheelk): Everything ██ is █████ ████ ████ fine ███ █ ████ love. ████ █████ the ███ UPA ███ ████ Government ██ #GOIBlocks #Twitter</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/NonExistingMan/status/238535017658208256">Sunanda Vashisht</a> (@sunandavashisht): First they ignored us, then they argued with us, then they blocked us #emergency2012</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/6a6ar/status/238680491073626112">Babar </a>(@6a6ar): The only thing left for us to do is block all media and Govt. handles in protest. Let's start a #VirtualRevolution #IndiaBlocks</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/abhijitmajumder/status/237986621411168256">Abhijit Majumdar</a> (@abhijitmajumder): Govt of #India is just testing #socialmedia waters by blocking spoof PMO accounts. Prepare for greater censorship on #Twitter and #Facebook</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/labnol/status/238659912488599553">Amit Agarwal</a> (@labnol): The Indian govt can force ISPs to block individual Twitter profiles but everything will still be available through web apps like Tweetdeck</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Humour and sarcasm too weren't in short supply. For example:</p>
<p class="callout"><a href="https://twitter.com/maheshmurthy/status/238171725320314880">Mahesh Murthy</a> (@maheshmurthy): Now that Govt has solved North East crisis by limiting SMS, it will fight malnutrition by banning food pics on Instagram</p>
<p class="callout"><a href="https://twitter.com/itzkallyhere/status/238691084748869632">Kalyan Varadarajan</a> (@itzkallyhere): My nose blocked. But I didn't poke my nose in Govt matters! My nose isnt a handle. Damn! #GOI</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://twitter.com/rameshsrivats/status/237433006111993857">Ramesh Srivats</a> (@rameshsrivats): I've a few SMSs to spare from today's quota. If you mail me recipient's number, message & a cheque, I can send an SMS for you.#BusinessIdea</p>
<p>However, not everyone is amused. Amrit Hallan <a href="http://writingcave.com/india-becoming-blockistan/">asks</a>:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Are we going to follow the footsteps of Pakistan and China and turn into a Blockistan? No matter how much it makes some of the English-speaking mainstream journalists happy, blocking isn’t possible, at least sustained blocking. The Internet has empowered the silent majority and there is going to be a big backlash if the government, or another agency tries to take this power back. In what form this backlash is going to manifest? It remains to be seen.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In a guest post on <a href="http://trak.in/">Trak.In</a>, blogger Prasant Naidu <a href="http://trak.in/tags/business/2012/08/21/government-ban-social-media/">suggests how </a>the government could use social media positively. He says:</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">instead of banning social media, the government can use it in its favor controlling the crisis of NE. The virality feature that our politicians are scared of can be used for killing rumors. Can’t the government get in touch with Facebook and Google India to find out ways to use social media in a better way? Can’t the Government start a social media campaign to<b> </b><b>“Save NE and Save India”?</b></p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter is one of the tools that the government can use. A brilliant example is how Nirupama Rao, India’s Foreign Secretary <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/nirupama-rao-breaks-barrier-tweets-on-libya-and-other-crises/articleshow/7611382.cms">used Twitter during the evacuation of Indians at the time of the Libyan crisis</a>.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; ">Social Media is not rocket science; it is about communicating with humans and for that you need to have the will to evolve and change. Banning social networks is not a solution to combat rumors but it is a half backed measure to cover the lid on the growing tensions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government, on it's part, <a href="http://web2asia.blognhanh.com/2012/08/indian-government-issues-social-media.html">issued social media guidelines</a> to be followed by government agencies. It remains to be seen how the situation develops on the ground and what impact the current stand-off between government and social media has on cyber-control policies in the days to come.</p>
<p><s> </s></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/global-voices-online-org-aparna-ray-aug-24-2012india-social-media-censorship-to-contain-cyber-terrorism'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/global-voices-online-org-aparna-ray-aug-24-2012india-social-media-censorship-to-contain-cyber-terrorism</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaIT ActSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-27T03:36:37ZNews ItemIndia 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 Item