Centre for Internet and Society

5 things you need to know about online privacy policies

praskrishna — 2012-04-30T12:02:40Z

Ever since Google tweaked it's privacy policy on January 24, online confidentiality and its future has been the topic of a raging public debate, making it hard for an average Internet user to decide what he should and should not share on an online platform. Experts say that the key here is to understand each of the terms and policies before you sign in. Indu Nandakumar writes in the Economic Times on 2 February 2012.

How is Data Retained?

The data retention policy allows the online provider to hold personal information about you. But the question is, for how long will they hold your data?

Data, here includes personal information such as your name, address, date of birth, photographs and transaction information such as when did you last log into your account, from which device, from which IP address, whose profiles did you visit etc.

It's ridiculous to ask "what bits of the privacy policy" should you read, says Graham Cluely, a senior consultant with security software developer Sophos.

"Because the only sensible answer is 'all of it.' Only you can decide if you're comfortable with it, so read it and you decide."

What are the Legal Implications?

It is important to understand under what circumstances will the website share your personal information with the Central and State government agencies. For instance, Facebook would have to share your information with the Ministry of Home Affairs since Facebook has an office in Hyderabad and comes under the purview of the Indian IT Act.

"But Twitter could deny user information to the Egyptian government during the 2011 Arab protests as it did not fall under the Egyptian jurisdiction," says Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

What Happens after Your Account is Deleted?

Experts say that deleting your account is not the end of it all as social networks usually store your personal information even after you delete the account. For instance, Google stores your data for nearly nine months even after you delete your GMail account.

Similarly, Twitter stores your IP address and personal information for a certain period after you delete your account.

What Personal Data is Shared with Private Organisations?

Apart from the information you share while creating the account, social networks also process and share personal data such as photographs, likes and events with their business partners and social-media analytics and monitoring agencies.

"So the basic rule is don't upload anything to the Internet which you don't want your mother-in-law or your boss to see, as you can't necessarily trust the various sites to keep them securely," says Graham Cluely.

"Further, think carefully about what other information you may be sharing online - such as your location".

What Can an Individual Do?

The easiest thing is to customise every aspect of your privacy policy, according computer security firm Kaspersky Labs. For instance, on social networks such Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter, you may limit the information you display to certain groups of people.

"India needs to have a broad and horizontal law that establishes online privacy as a right. Unlike in European countries, India doesn't have a privacy commissioner who can state the principles, interpret the data and question the online providers," says Sunil Abraham.

The original article was published in the Economic Times. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-online-privacy-policies-1

India needs an independent privacy law, says NGO Privacy India

praskrishna — 2012-02-03T11:46:22Z

India needs an independent privacy law though there are a number of provisions in existing legislations that protect a citizen's privacy, according to an NGO that is lobbying for the cause. The story was published in the Economic Times on 2 February 2012.

Privacy India, a conglomerate of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and the Society in Action Group (SAG), with support from Privacy International, conducted a study of the existing laws in India related to privacy over a period of one and a half years in various cities.

A report, which will be released soon, has documented their findings about privacy laws and issues in India and high-level conclave and a national symposium on privacy will be held in Delhi on February 3 and 4.

Lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan and NCPRI head Aruna Roy will take part in the discussions on privacy in transparency, e-governance initiatives, national security, banking and health issues.

"India doesn't have a privacy law, but there are provisions for it in different laws. During the course of the research, we found that the Indian judiciary has not been very strict in overseeing the implementation of the privacy clauses in various laws," CIS member Prashant Iyengar said, while reporting some of the findings of the study.

Stricter implementation of the existing laws could go a long way in curbing most privacy issues, Iyengar said.

Published in the Economic Times on 2 February 2012. Prashant Iyengar is quoted in this.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/india-needs-an-independent-privacy-law-says-ngo-privacy-india

Privacy, speech at stake in cyberspace

praskrishna — 2012-02-03T11:27:58Z

Internet censorship is becoming a trend, with many countries around the world filtering the Web in varying degrees, writes Leslie D’Monte in Livemint on February 3, 2012.

Privacy and freedom of expression are gradually being compromised in cyberspace, say advocacy groups, with social networking sites and Internet companies buckling under pressure from governments to monitor and block “objectionable” content.

Take the case of Twitter Inc., which on 26 January posted on its official blog that “...starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country—while keeping it available in the rest of the world”. While Twitter reasoned that as it continues to grow internationally, it will have to deal with “countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression”, activists and bloggers cautioned that the new censorship policies could muffle online freedom.

“The decision of Twitter to censor its content based on the political masters’ wishes in each country is an indication that commercial interests are always higher than democratic interests for these companies. The move of the Indian government to arm-twist the major intermediaries is, therefore, expected to succeed in due course once the initial resistance wears off,” cautioned Na. Vijayashankar, a Bangalore-based e-business consultant and founder secretary of the Cyber Society of India.

In December, minister for communications and information technology (IT) Kapil Sibal said in New Delhi that the Centre had no option but to “evolve guidelines” to ensure that “blasphemous content on the Internet or television is not allowed”, since Internet and social networking sites such as Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Twitter, Yahoo Inc., and Facebook Inc. failed “to respond to and cooperate with” the government’s request to keep “objectionable” content off their sites.

A few days later, Sibal clarified that “...this government (of the United Progressive Alliance) does not believe in censorship”. And in an interview to Mint on 1 February, Gulshan Rai—head of the elite Indian Computer Emergency Response Team and coordinator of a committee on cyberlaw—said, inter alia, “We value the freedom of speech. We do not interfere there.”

Internet censorship is a rising trend, with approximately 40 countries filtering the Web in varying degrees, including democratic and non-democratic governments. YouTube and Gmail (both from Google), BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd, WikiLeaks, Twitter and Facebook have all been censored, at different times, in China, Iran, Egypt and other countries.

“The clampdown on online free speech and the roll-out of a multi-tiered blanket surveillance regime via the draconian IT Act and its associated rules in India is part of a global trend,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society. “Big brother tendencies with the government have found common cause with powerful rights-holders, who are keen to crack down on intellectual property rights infringements. This, combined with the dramatic growth of the surveillance industry, has resulted in civil liberties being undermined across the world for a variety of pretexts ranging from child porn, obscenity, hate speech, organized crime, terrorism and piracy.”

Transparency Report website—which logs content removal requests it receives from governments—the Internet company received 67 requests from the Indian government for the removal of 282 content items (such as videos critical of politicians) from YouTube and blogs during July-December 2010. Google said it complied with 22% of the requests. For the January-June 2011 (latest data available) period, Google received 68 content removal requests for 358 items from Indian government agencies. Google complied in 51% cases.

Entangling the user

Even as they face pressure from governments, companies such as Google and Facebook are tweaking their policies to allow for sharing of user data across multiple product offerings. They claim it will give their users a more “intuitive” experience, but advocacy groups say the policies are being altered to give advertisers more bang for the buck at the expense of user privacy.

Google, for instance, is making changes to its privacy policies and terms of service, which take effect from 1 March. “Regulators globally have been calling for shorter, simpler privacy policies—and having one policy covering many different products is now fairly standard across the Web,” said Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy, product and engineering, on the official company blog. Google has begun notifying users of these changes since 24 January.

For example, a search for restaurants in Mumbai may throw up Google+ posts or photos that people have shared with other users, or that are in their albums. Usability can be enhanced, for instance, by allowing memos from Google Docs to be read in Gmail, or adding a Gmail contact to a meeting in Google Calendar. Google, according to Whitten, does not sell personal information nor share it externally without permission “except in very limited circumstances like a valid court order”.

Facebook, on its part, introduced its “Timeline” feature in December, which digs up a user’s past and displays it, but does not allow opting out of the service. The feature is being introduced for all 800 million users, around 40 million of whom are in India. Those not accustomed to checking their privacy settings will have a hard time going through the hundreds of messages they’ve posted over the last few years (Facebook was founded in 2004).

The Electronic Privacy Information Center said the launch of Timeline forces more privacy setting changes on Facebook users, “which flies in the face of both privacy and a settlement reached between the firm and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)”. On 29 November, Facebook agreed to an FTC order that bars it from “deceiving” consumers about privacy practices and requires it to submit to monitoring for 20 years.

“Privacy is certainly a very serious concern for Internet users. Some of the big brands like Facebook and Google simply have access to too much information about the life of their users, and this information could easily be misused by the brand or wilfully by someone else. Our guidance to consumers and clients is that first and foremost, they should be very conscious of these privacy challenges. If we put out any communication on a social network, it is akin to broadcast communication. By default, choose the tightest privacy setting and then gradually loosen up instead of accepting the default privacy setting of Facebook or Google. Don’t give out information like cellphone number, date of birth...or even names of close relations on social networks,” said Hareesh Tibrewala, joint chief executive officer of Social Wavelength, a company that advises clients on social media strategies.

Mahesh Murthy, founder of digital marketing firm Pinstorm, acknowledged that “in reality, there is virtually no privacy online. Governments and companies try to assure apprehensive citizens about privacy, while at the same time doing everything to destroy it in reality”.

He advises marketers to be upfront about their data collection and management policies, and declare them prominently on their online properties. On an individual level, Murthy takes comfort “in the fact that I could just be one of those 3 billion+ Internet users worldwide with my data a small part of the swarm out there that no one might take a special interest in”.

Electronic police state?

India has a history of exerting pressure on companies for access to communications data. According to Cryptohippie Inc., a provider of communication security services, India ranked 26 among the most policed states in the world in 2010—“one in which every surveillance camera recording, every email sent, every Internet site surfed, every post made, every check written, every credit card swipe, every cellphone ping…are all criminal evidence, and all are held in searchable databases”, according to the company that discontinued the report in 2011, stating that “…most people are defending their ignorance; not much good will come from us repeating ourselves”.

Currently, the Indian Telegraph Act and the IT Act, 2008 (amendments introduced in the IT Act, 2000), give the government the power to monitor, intercept and even block online conversations and websites. Moreover, under section 79 of the IT Intermediary (Rules and Guidelines), 2011, intermediaries—telcos, Internet services providers, network services providers, search engines, cyber cafes, Web-hosting companies, online auction portals and online payment sites—are mandated to exercise “due diligence” and advise users not to share/distribute information violative of the law or a person’s privacy and rights. Intermediaries are expected to act on a complaint within 36 hours of receiving it, and remove such content when warranted. In case the intermediary doesn’t find the content objectionable, the matter will have to be contested in a court of law.

“The Indian government can, and should, monitor conversations and websites if it believes the content can harm the security, defence, sovereignty and integrity of the country,” maintained Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court lawyer and a cyberlaw expert, but wondered how it would go about implementing the task of monitoring conversation on an unstructured Internet. “The intention is good, but the path is not clear,” said Duggal, who envisions a lot of cases being filed against misuse of these laws.

“While the affected party can lodge a complaint with the intermediary, removal has to follow a due process, which should include suitable documentary evidence placed by the party. There should be a process of examination through an ombudsman, a process of arbitration where the request is disputed or a court order as may be required on a case to case basis,” said Vijayashankar of the Cyber Society of India.

The original was published in Livemint on 3 February 2012. Sunil Abraham was quoted in it.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/privacy-speech-at-stake-in-cyberspace-1

Freedom of Expression in Community Media and on the Internet Understanding Connections, Finding Common Ground

praskrishna — 2012-02-03T11:00:31Z

A meeting co-organised by the Internet Democracy Project (Delhi) and Maraa (Bangalore) with the support of the Community Radio Forum in New Delhi on 3 February 2012. Pranesh Prakash is participating in this event.

Access to FM radio and broadband Internet access have proliferated since the 90s. Since 2006, community radio has been licensed to community and educational initiatives. Today there are more than 150 community radio stations which are operational, reaching some of the most underserved communities in India. Further, Internet penetration is about 8-10%, reaching about 100 million people. Both these media are on the verge of a paradigm shift.

Due to ever-increasing convergence and the ubiquity of digital communication platforms and mobile telephony, community radio stations will be able to reach not just deeper but wider. The emergence of indigenous fonts and Internet on wireless mobile technologies will mean that the next few hundred million people will begin using the Internet. Both of these phenomena are positive developments signalling possibilities of greater democratisation of media and media for the democratisation of India at multiple levels. However, there are significant issues which threaten to
impede the free growth of these platforms - troubling as it is, the threats are related to barriers on freedom of expression.

While radio still faces a ban on the broadcast of news and current affairs, opaque spectrum allocation, the imposition of a government content code and pressure to self-regulate, the Internet on the other hand has seen tumultuous developments through 2011 and early this year as well. Both the government and the judiciary have shown scant respect for and confidence in their own people, choosing instead to regulate the free flow of information citing communal sensitivities, minority population, objectionable content, etc.

This meeting aims to bring together advocates and practitioners from both the community radio and the Internet communities, to discuss what restrictions there are on freedom of expression, through law and policy; what commonalities there are between the two platforms; and what the areas and mechanisms are through and in which these two groups can work together in the future to engage policy and legal frameworks so that people's constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression is upheld in letter and in spirit.

The meeting invites about 15 participants from both community radio and Internet circles, from across the country. The meeting will be held between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on 3 February 2012 and will take place at the UNESCO Office, B-5/29, Safdarjang Enclave, New Delhi 110029.

Agenda

10.00-10.30 a.m.	Welcome and Introductions Anja Kovacs and Ram Bhat
10.30-11.15 a.m.	Community Radio and Freedom of Expression Sajan Venniyoor Moderated by Ashish Sen
11.15-11.30 a.m.	Tea Break
11.30 a.m.-12.15 p.m.	The Internet and Freedom of Expression Anja Kovacs Moderated by Ashish Sen
12.15-13.30 p.m.	Freedom of Expression in Community Media and on the Internet: Overlaps and Common Issues Group Discussion, moderated by Ram Bhat
13.30-14.30 p.m.	Lunch
14.30-15.15 p.m.	Joint priorities for community media and Internet activists Group Discussion, moderated by Siddharth Narrain
15.15-15.30 p.m.	Tea Break
15.30-16.15 p.m.	Taking it Forward – Plan of Action Group Discussion, moderated by Anja Kovacs
16.15-16.45 p.m.	Thanks and Wrap-up Ram Bhat and Anja Kovacs

List of Participants

Anja Kovacs – Internet Democracy Project
Arti Jaiman – Gurgaon ki Awaaz and CRF
Ashish Sen – AMARC Asia Pacific and CRF
Debarun Dutta - Drishti
Geeta Seshu – the Hoot
Hemant Babu – Nomad India and CRF
Mir Ubaid – the Hoot
N Ramakrishna – Ideosync Media
Parminder Jeet Singh – IT for Change
Pranesh Prakash – Centre for Internet and Society
Ram Bhat – Maraa
Sajan Venniyoor - CRF
Sapna Shahani - WAVE (Women Aloud Videoblogging for Empowerment)
Siddharth Narrain – Alternative Law Forum
Srinivasan Ramani – Newsclick.in

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/freedom-of-expression-in-community-media-and-on-the-internet-understanding-connections-finding-common-ground

Google move is not good for netizens, say experts

praskrishna — 2012-02-03T10:03:17Z

Google's plan to merge data across 60 of its properties, which was announced last week, has drawn criticism from experts on the Internet, who are saying that this is detrimental to privacy. Balaji Narasimhan wrote this in the Hindu Business Line. The article was published on 31 January 2012.

"Google is doing what is good for shareholders. This is not positive for netizens,” said Mr Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society. “People like you and me have to either accept it or leave."

But what are the alternatives? Mr Somick Goswami, Director Consulting, PwC India, didn't want to comment directly on Google, but in the larger context of data privacy, he asked, "Do users want a free Internet or control over content? There is a lot of advocacy going around it. End of the day, when using the Internet, there has to be trust."

One way that Google could build trust could be by using something pertaining to loyalty, which retailers use in the real world in order to woo customers.

Mr Ram Menon, Executive Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer of Tibco, said that many of his clients make offers that are in context with what users want.

"For example, if you like cappuccino and this knowledge is known to a vendor, he can offer you a cappuccino when you walk past the store." He said that in such cases, there was no affront to privacy because the offer is relevant and in context. "You are a member and have opted in," he said.

Perhaps, the fact that all of Google's services are free has something to do with the privacy issue, pointed out the Australian Privacy Foundation. As its site privacy.org.au noted, "The company's business model is based on advertising revenue. Users pay no fees for their use of the services."

And the merger of its 60 policies apart, there is another issue worrying users — new acquisitions. As Mr Abraham pointed out, “When I was browsing Silk Smitha before YouTube was acquired by Google, I had no idea that one day this information would be known to Google."

And the issue becomes more serious in the context of a growing mobile workforce. As the Australian Privacy Foundation said, "Android mobile phones effectively trap users into having a Google user account."

Using Google services on a mobile – especially Google Latitude, a service that allows you to enable your friends to view your current location – allows Google to track your movements.

And since Google is predominantly an advertising-driven company, it could be argued that one day they might share information about you with a third party, enabling them to market to you more effectively, though this may not necessarily be done with your explicit permission – and this means that you may get an offer for products even if you have not opted in for such a service.

What can be done? Mr Abraham rued the fact that there are no specific laws to safeguard users.

"India needs privacy laws. In the US, law makers will create a fuss. In India, we are at the mercy of companies."

The original was published in the Hindu Business Line. Sunil Abraham is quoted in this article.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/google-move-is-not-good-for-netizens-say-experts

Summary of the Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

praskrishna — 2012-01-30T16:24:40Z

The Western Ghats Portal team had organized a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state of biodiversity informatics as expressed in three spheres: technology behind biodiversity informatics, scientific commons and policy and biodiversity portals in India. It hoped to provide an opportunity to interact and learn from similar endeavors in this emerging discipline. The workshop was held at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore on 25 November 2011.

There were 5 speakers and 10 panelists representing as many portal initiatives, participating at the venue or via WebEx, addressing an audience of 75 comprising of students, researchers, representatives from governmental bodies and technological platforms.The entire day’s sessions were peppered with questions and discussions, directed to the presenters as also within the members of the audience.

The technology session presented an Indian initiative, Bhuvan, a geospatial data alternative to GoogleEarth that was pertinent to the India centric audience. The second presentation was the Atlas of Living Australia, an international endeavor that was able to give a broad overview of how government funding for the sharing of government data on a public platform was able to source large information and present it for open access on a portal. The project aims to serve a variety of users from scientists, citizen scientists to policy makers and activists in biodiversity and conservation. The WGP was presented by a discussion of architecture and design of participation interface for recording and accumulating biodiversity observation data. The scientific commons and policy session covered a wide range of topics: the interpretation of the Indian laws for portal developments across disciplines, the governmental policies that may hinder the development of Open source platforms, the creative commons licenses and how they work for scientific data, and whether developing a biodiversity commons would help the community at large.

Global initiatives in the area of scientific commons were presented. Views from the participants on various aspects and the practicality of a legal framework were discussed. There are plans to discuss and evolve a draft of a charter for scientific commons that would be relevant for biodiversity and conservation. A clearly articulated and agreed data policy is also one of the deliverables of the project.

The third session centred on the experience of India-centric biodiversity portals. Two of the panelists presented their portals and attended the session over WebEx from the United States. A spectrum of portals was presented. Some of them were focused on single taxa, or a theme focus from medicinal plants to thematic citizen science initiatives. The IBP and WGP were presented as broad based with large collections of spatial data and species data. Perspective plans of large biodiversity portal initiatives, like the GBIF node for India, INBIF, were outlines to showing the things that may come in the next few years.

The discussions revolved around scientific rigor versus citizen participation, large-scale projects v/s small-scale focused portals, and maintaining quality with crowd sourced data. Ideas about how peer recognition and scientific status could be achieved were discussed. Focused portals closely managed by experts to provide valuate biodiversity and species data were discussed, with methods of maintaining quality and curating data. The event concluded by discussions of how each portal can maintain its identity and focus but at the same time evolve mechanisms for interoperability and exchange of information. There were open discussions on whether we can network and provide easy toolkits for building focused participation sites.

Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

Objectives of the Workshop

Over the last few years, Biodiversity Informatics has emerged as a field to aggregate and consolidate biodiversity information across the world. With the increased penetration of the Internet into developing economies, and the widespread adoption of web technologies, biodiversity informatics has spawned an impressive variety of initiatives. These initiatives range from global knowledge bases and networks, national initiatives, eco-region based initiatives, as well as sharply focused initiatives which address a single species or event. There have been tangible advantages for stakeholders from these initiatives which has inspired many other endeavors. Success stories exist at both global and local level, and learning from these experiences can help one understand the multi-faceted nature of this discipline.

The Western Ghats Portal team organized a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state of biodiversity informatics as expressed in three spheres: i) technology behind biodiversity informatics, ii) scientific commons and policy and iii) biodiversity portals in India. The workshop was intended to bring together technologists, open data policy experts, leaders of portal initiatives and user groups and stakeholders to meet and discuss experiences and approaches to Biodiversity Informatics.

Seventy five participants attended the workshop covering governmental agencies, NGO’s, academic institutes, student groups, CEPF grantees and other relevant stakeholders. There were 5 speakers and 10 panelists representing as many portal initiatives, participating at the venue or via WebEx from the continents of Australia and North America.

Plenary I: Technology behind biodiversity informatics - 0930 - 1115 hrs

This session was introduced by Dr.B.Ramesh of the French Institute of Pondicherry, who welcomed the participants of the workshop. He highlighted the growth of Biodiversity Informatics leveraging the Internet. In this emerging discipline, stressed the need to take stock of the latest developments in the area.

Development of Information System, Open Data standards, Archive and Geospatial solutions, Visualization in Bhuvan - M. Arulraj, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

Arulraj gave an overview of the Bhuvan project, ISRO’s geo-portal serving as a rich geteway to Indian earth observations. The project was launched in August 2009 and has made rapid strides since then to expose earth observation images and thematic maps on the Indian sub-continent. The Bhuvan project has multiple modules, which include 3-D and 2-D visualizations; a data archive and data download; thematic land use and land cover maps; a mobile application; and a discussion forum. The project is in active development and in beta, but is adding many features and data to the portal. In addition to data dissemination it provides a webGIS platform with the ability to do analyses and create geographical layers by users. The Bhuvan portal conforms to the national map policy while exposing spatial information and imagery through its evolving portal.

Arulraj explained the architecture of the portal and surveyed the webGIS and open source technologies that were available. A demo terminal of Bhuvan was exposed during the lunch session. During the discussions on map policy, Arulraj quoted that as per Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP)-2011, all satellite data of resolutions up to 1 m shall be distributed on a nondiscriminatory basis and on “as requested basis” by NRSC/ISRO.

Architecture and design of participation interfaces - Anand Janakiraman, Western Ghats Portal

Anand Janakiram spoke about the design of participation interfaces for the Western Ghats portal. The intent was to engage with user groups on the user interfaces and usability of an observation interface, where users will be able to upload a multi-media object; provide a location for the observation; make a species call with a certain level of confidence; and provide notes and comments on the observation. The observation will be rated by the crowd. Species calls could be changed if necessary and agreed or disagreed upon.

Various rating systems were discussed. These included a 5 or ten star rating system, like movie rating systems; a multi-dimensional rating system like in Wikipedia; a “like” rating system that is used in many sites; and an expert based rating system. There was a lot of discussion on rating systems among the participants concerning the necessity of an expert based system; the wisdom of the public in identifications; a simple and easy to use rating system on the portal.

Challenges on the emerging discipline of Biodiversity Informatics - Donald Hobern, Atlas of Living Australia - Web participation.

Donald Hobern participated in the session from Australia over the Internet. His talk and presentation was viewed by the participants via two-way WebEx where he answered questions and interacted with the audience.

Donald presented the Australian Government supported multi-institutional project called the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA). The ALA is a multi-institutional project with large funding to build a comprehensive biodiversity site focused on Australia. The conceptual model for the portal is to build a platform that will aggregate biodiversity information resources from specimen records, field observations, literature, images, experts and amateurs. The information will be integrated as species pages, distributions, regional atlases, and nomenclature. Through this, the portal aims to serve a whole range of users ranging from researchers, taxonomists, land-use planners, and conservation and park managers.

Donald explained the typical specimen, field occurrence and occurrence data and how it is the data is presented via collections. He also explained the services to manage sensitive data and name services available to the public through APIs. The ALA also has rich mapping tools that help relate biodiversity to spatial parameters like rainfall, temperature and other abiotic and biotic factors.

ALA also develops user communities among various stakeholders that include resource management groups, conservation groups, ecological researchers, environmental agencies, field naturalists and taxonomy researchers. They also develop specific use cases and applications for each of these groups.

The questions and interaction session was animated, even though it was on the Internet. One of the issues raised was that the ALA seems to be building an all encompassing and comprehensive portal, without any particular focus theme or focus group. How was the planning of features and functions being done? Donald’s response was the portal team would build functions that they thought would be useful and then engage with user groups to better and fine-tune the application. They engage with user groups about functions on the portal.

The Western Ghats Portal team would like to thank Donald Hobern for his active participation in the workshop with a valued presentation on the state-of-the-art of a comprehensive biodiversity portal.

Plenary II: Scientific commons and policy - 1130 - 1300 hrs

The session was chaired by Dr. Ravi Chellam of the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust. Ravi introduced the session and the speakers. The idea was to generate discussions on data sharing policy among the participants in the context of the Indian legal framework of map policy, biodiversity act, intellectual property, scientific creative commons, and the culture and attitude of Indian scientists. Ravi suggested that the session should lead to further discussions to evolve a policy for data sharing among biodiversity and conservation researchers and to evolve a charter for the best practices among the community.

Commons in the context of Biodiversity Information - Danish Sheikh, Alternative Law Forum

Danish Sheikh from the Alternate Law Forum (ALF) discussed the creative commons and stressed that it maintains the copyright of the contributor. Creative Commons only specifies the terms of sharing the information and in today’s Internet driven world open access to information was essential. With a complex legal framework of creative commons, map policy, biodiversity act, and research interests of individuals, for sharing biodiversity data we must consider property versus propriety. The sharing of information on the portal must be seen from the non-commercial and academic nature of the information as well as the use of data for social good of conservation. Government data in the form of maps and reports should be sharable on an artistic license and they could be deployed on the portal. In the sharing of biodiversity information, there are no concrete cases of violations of laws and thus there are no examples to learn from.

Danish Sheikh had prepared a draft of declaration to be discussed and agreed upon by the community. This was to be circulated to the participants, comments solicited and a broad consensus evolved on the best practices for sharing biodiversity information. The discussions centered on the map policy and the need to carefully study the map policy and the biodiversity act from a legal perspective and arrive at a policy for the portal that will conform to the laws and acts in India.

Open data in the scientific realm - Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet and Society

Sunil Abraham from the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) spoke on various national and international initiatives on open data in the scientific realm. National consultations and discussions have been going on towards evolving a National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) among scientists and researchers in the country. The principle of the policy is based on openness, flexibility, transparency, legal conformity, protection of intellectual property, formal responsibility, and professionalism. Based on these principles, various definitions have evolved. He stressed upon a clear articulation of non-sharable data in the negative list based upon the legal framework and Right to Information Act; restricted access data and open access data.

Sunil Abraham also discussed various international initiatives on scientific data sharing especially in the ecology and biodiversity realm. He spoke of the Eye on Earth initiative for evolving a sharing policy, the framework of the Shared European Environment Information System (SEIS) and various standards for data sharing.

Discussions were around the issues of motivations for data sharing and building social networks and peer encouragement for data sharing. He opined that there was no recipe for engaging the crowd towards building and participating on social networks and sharing information.

Sunil also suggested that the community should evolve a best practices policy document by discussions and debates among themselves. CIS should be seen as a service provider and advocate for evolving a shared policy and lobbying with government if necessary. But the biodiversity community should provide the lead in this effort and the CIS would only be advisory.

Plenary III - Biodiversity portals in India - 1400 - 1700 hrs

The session was moderated by MD Madhusudan of the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore. Over the last few years there has been a multitude of portals focused on aggregating and publishing biodiversity information of the Indian sub-continent. Some of these portals are focused upon a region or taxa or subject of interest and some portals address a wider canvas of issues on biodiversity and conservation. The session was focused on presentations by each of the portals, presenting the key features and focus of their portals; the experience of building and running the portals; key lessons learnt and future plans for the portal.

The response for the sessions on biodiversity was enthusiastic. Over 12 portal initiatives were presented. Some of the presentations were by participants in the United States, who run portals on India. The presentations and participation was done over WebEx sessions overcoming the challenge of different time zones.

Madhusudhan moderated the session, keeping focus, and allowing time for discussions and debates.

V.B Mathur, Indian Biodiversity Information Facility (InBIF)

VB Mathur presented plans for a GBIF node to be set up in India at the Wildlife Institute of India called Indian Biodiversity Facility (InBIF). The project is just being initiated and is conceived as a broad and participative initiative to address the challenges to conservation in the 21st century India. With a growing economy, the objective is to provide biodiversity information to build sustainable development for larger and inclusive populations of India. The InBIF has developed a vision and mission statement and will produce a concept paper by a consultative process by next year 2012. InBIF recognizes that such an inclusive biodiversity portal will require significant funding and the involvement of already present biodiversity portals. InBIF proposes to seek substantial funding based on the concept paper via the 12th Five-Year-Plan period starting 2012-2013.

Suhel Quader, Season Watch (http://www.seasonwatch.in), Migrant Watch (http://www.migrantwatch.in)

Suhel Quader presented two portals Seasons Watch and Migrant Watch focused on citizen science initiatives. The Seasons Watch portal is focused on the observation and recording of seasons as revealed by trees, by their fruiting, flowering and leaf fall patterns. About 100 species are observed all over the country. Migrant Watch observes the arrival and departure of migrant bird species across the sub-continent. Both these large citizen science efforts are focused on the recording and understanding of seasons to create a base-line of data on seasons and their variations. These sites are driven by questions and hypotheses. The sites have an active citizen participation. The portals are planning to expand significantly into school networks. The data generated by citizens are freely available on the portals and it encourages others to download, explore, analyze and publish analysis on the data accumulated on the portal.

Sanjay Molur, Pterocount (http://www.pterocount.org/)

Sanjay Molur presented Pterocount a South Asian bat monitoring program. The project is aimed at creating awareness about bat conservation issues and developing data on the status of South Asian bat populations. There are about 3500 species of bats and data on the bat roosts and their populations is collected through online portals as well as offline forms. The information from all these sites will be compiled and analyzed for trends in the population of bats, to identify key threats to roosts and to provide recommendations for their conservation. The data collected is contributed to the IUCN and is shared with other researchers under creative commons licenses. The study is currently focused on a single bat species Pteropus giganteus, but plans to expand to other bat species as well.

Suma Tagadur, Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (http://envis.frlht.org)

Sathya Sangeetha presented the medicinal plants’ envis site maintained by the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions. The site is focused on the development of a database for medicinal plants with details of taxonomy, local names, status, distribution and trade. The site undertakes a systematic update for 12 medicinal plants per year. They also study the conservation status of medicinal plants and help in the identification of a plant red list. They have plans to develop a children’s portal for increasing awareness of medicinal plants among children. With a focused agenda, the site has a specific and valuable role in biodiversity and conservation of India.

Ramesh BR - Western Ghats Portal (http://www.thewesternghats.in/)

BR Ramesh presented the Western Ghats Portal. This is a relatively young initiative launched about six months ago building on the India Biodiversity Portal. The focus of the portal is to collect biodiversity and conservation information on the Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot. The portal has a map module, a species pages module, a collaborative module and integrative theme pages. The portal has aggregated significant available data on the Western Ghats and deployed it on the portal. The portal plans to add an observation recording interface and campaign for large scale participation on the portal, and species identification keys.

Shwetank Verma, Biodiversity of India, formerly Project Brahma (http://www.biodiversityofindia.org)

Shwetank Verma presented the Biodiversity of India Portal. The portal is developed and managed completely by voluntary effort, and is aimed at being a wiki resource on the biodiversity of India. The site aggregates data on Indian biodiversity from various public sites and presents it attractively on the portal. It has an effective search engine LigerCat that helps index all information on the portal. It aims to add and enrich information on the human and cultural aspects of species and their uses. The portal is keen on networking and sharing information with other biodiversity sites by building necessary APIs for interactions between various biodiversity sites.

Krushnamegh Kunte, ifoundbutterflies (http://ifoundbutterflies.org/) web participation

Krushnamegh Kunte presented the ifoundbutterfiles portal over a WebEx session from the United States. ifoundbutterflies is a community site on the butterflies of India. It contains information on species pages, life cycle pages, photographs, and identification keys of over 600 species of butterflies in India. All information is carefully peer review and curated a team of biologists studying and researching butterflies. The data is assuredly authenticated and verified and will form a reliable source of butterfly information on India.

Vijay Barve, DiversityIndia (http://diversityindia.org/) web participation

Vijay Barve presented the DiversityIndia, a social network group over a WebEx session from the United States. The effort started off as a yahoo group and then moved to facebook as a more convenient platform to share information on the biodiversity of India. It plans to aggregate the information posted in these groups into a site that will maintain and develop biodiversity databases. The group is open to sharing information and resources with other portals working on the biodiversity of India.

Deepak Menon, India Water Portal (http://www.indiawaterportal.org/)

Samuel Rajkumar presented the India Water Portal. Their portal is supported by campaigning for participation and awareness among various fora on water resources. The features include a question bank and an interaction with experts on water; a data repository on water; and a children’s section. The portal is currently working on a data project aimed at accumulating a large repository of water related data on the portal for open access. The portal intends on expanding with a map component and a data visualization module.

Chitra Ravi, India Biodiversity Portal (http://indiabiodiversity.org/)

Chitra Ravi presented the India Biodiversity Portal. The portal was started in 2008 after the first phase of portal development. Over the past year, the portal has been enriched with checklists and species pages. The portal is closely integrated with the Western Ghats Portal sharing the platform, its features and the data. A comparison of the availability of data in EOL showed that for the lesser known flora and fauna, there is very little information publicly available. The portal expects to fill this gap, by generating rich species and distribution content for Indian species.

M.D. Madhusudhan, Status of Golden Jackals in India

MD Madhusudhan presented a focused and time-based project on the Golden Jackals on India. The site campaigned and crowd sourced on the current and historical occurrence of the golden jackal in India. The enthusiasm for participation was evident with large data collection. The data was analyzed and made available publicly and freely to whoever wanted to use the data. There was a need felt for a generic portal to support such focused time-based crowd sourcing and citizen science efforts.

K.Sankara Rao, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc

K Sankara Rao, presented the Center for Ecological Sciences’ creation of a virtual herbarium database from the rich herbarium available at the Institute. The herbarium is Father Saldhana’s collection on the flora of Karnataka and has the best representation of plant specimens of Karnataka. The effort to digitize the herbarium is a passionate project that will make the herbarium resources to be more widely available. Sankara Rao requested volunteers to come forward and work on the project.

Discussions and summary of the day:

The discussions centered on a range of topics and concerns for Biodiversity Informatics in India. They focused on the following themes:

Large and comprehensive portals versus narrow and focused portals. While focused portals seem efficient in achieving their objectives, large portals are trying to explore different mechanisms of harnessing and disseminating information. While such large and comprehensive portals are necessary, they will require larger efforts, longer periods and significant funding to deliver useful content in biodiversity.

Participation and Quality. There were different views on crowd sourcing information and validation mechanisms. The importance of expert-driven efforts on ensuring quality was appreciated, while there was recognition that amateur naturalists and hobbyists could be very knowledgeable and reliable.

The scientific status of a portal can be enhanced with careful expert driven peer review mechanism. Portals could also serve as repositories for data papers publications and citations that would be valued by the scientific community. Target users for the portal. Discussions on target users for the portal covered the whole spectrum from specialists and scientists to activists and concerned citizens. A biodiversity portal was expected to provide information to a variety of users and stakeholders, including managers and policy makers.

Data exchange between portals: There was a general consensus on the interaction and exchange of data among portals. This was heartening to note, but since all the portals are new and evolving, mechanisms of exchange and building APIs for exchange was lower in priority for most portals. However, all portals were open to sharing information. Many of the citizen science portals have made their data public and downloadable.

There were discussions on larger projects like the WGP to engage in technology facilitation for various citizen science projects. This was discussed and opportunities for such technology facilitation need to be explored.

Various mechanisms, such as quiz competitions, interaction with experts, bio-blitzes, campaigns and road shows; to involve and engage citizens on the portal were discussed. There were open-ended discussions on how each portal can maintain its identity and focus, but at the same time evolve mechanisms for interoperability and exchange of information, and on whether we can network and provide easy tool kits for building focused participation sites.

Dr. Prabhakar, concluded the event with a thank you note and by expressing hope that the biodiversity conservation community can build together on the momentum the workshop has created.

List of participants present at the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics, 25th November, 2011, ATREE, Bangalore

Sr.No	Name	Affiliation	Role
1	Abhisheka	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
2	Ajith Ashokan	Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala	Audience
3	Amruta	Research and Action in Natural Wealth Administration (RANWA)	Audience
4	Anand Janakiraman	Western Ghats Portal	Speaker
5	Aneesh A	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
6	Anup Prasad K S	TCS, Bangalore	Audience
7	Anuradha S	University of Maryland, College Park	Audience
8	Aravind N A	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
9	Asha.A	Centre for Ecological Sciences - Indian Institute of Science (IISc)	Audience
10	Ashwini H S	Kuvempu University	Audience
11	Avinash K S	Kuvempu University	Audience
12	Baiju Raj	Agra bear rescue facility	Audience
13	Balasubramanian D	French Institute of Pondicherry	Audience
14	Baranidharan.K	Forest College and Research Institute	Audience
15	Chitra Ravi	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Panelist
16	Danish Sheikh	Alternate Law Forum	Speaker
17	Deepak Menon	ARGHYAM	Panelist
18	Devayani Khare	French Institute of Pondicherry	Audience
19	Dharnidharan	French Institute of Pondicherry	Audience
20	Dinesh T B	Servelots Infotech Pvt. ltd	Audience
21	Dr. B R Ramesh	French Institute of Pondicherry	Panelist
22	Dr. Bhaskar Acharya	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
23	Dr. Chikkaswamy	Om Bioscience Research	Audience
24	Dr. Easa	Asia Biodiversity Conservation Trust (ABCT)	Audience
25	Dr. Gautam Talukdar	Wildlife Institute of India	Audience
26	Dr. Gladwin Joseph	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
27	Dr. Jagdish Krishnaswamy	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
28	Dr. K N Ganeshaiah	University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore	Panelist
29	Dr. Karthikeyan Vasudevan	Wildlife Institute of India	Audience
30	Dr. L Shashikumar	Jnana Bharathi, Bangalore University	Audience
31	Dr. M H Swaminath	Addl. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildife)	Audience
32	Dr. M Sanjappa	Botanical Survey of India(BSI)	Audience
33	Dr. N S Hallikhed	BISB	Audience
34	Dr. R Sukumar	Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), IISc	Audience
35	Dr. Ravi Chellam	Madras Crocodile Bank Trust	Speaker
36	Dr. V B Mathur	Wildlife Institute of India	Panelist
37	G Areendran	Wildlife Institute of India	Audience
38	G Muthu Sankar	French Institute of Pondicherry	Audience
39	Harinandanan P V	Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala	Audience
40	Jagadish	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
41	Jyotish M S	Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala	Audience
42	Kavitha A	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
43	Kiran M C	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
44	Krushnamegh Kunte	Harvard University	Panelist
45	M Arulraj	National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Hyderabad	Speaker
46	M D Madhusudan	Nature Conservation Foundation	Audience
47	M Sathya Sangeetha	Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions	Audience
48	Madhura Niphadkar	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
49	Meganath V	Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala	Audience
50	Naveena N L	University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore	Audience
51	Nishadh	Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History	Audience
52	Prashanth M B	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
53	Priti Gururaj	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
54	Prof. K Sankara Rao	Centre for Ecological Sciences - Indian Institute of Science (IISc)	Audience
55	R C Prasad	Spatial Informatics Lab, IIITHyderabad	Audience
56	Radhika Santhanam	Śramani	Audience
57	Rahul Yadava	Strand Life Sciences	Audience
58	Rajan Pilakandy	Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History	Audience
59	Rakesh K N	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
60	Ramesh Kannan	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
61	Ravikanth	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
62	Sabah Rubina	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
63	Samuel Rajkumar	Independent web-developer	Audience
64	Sangeetha Sathya	FRLTH-IAIM	Audience
65	Santosh S Gaikwad	Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History	Audience
66	Seena Narayanan K	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
67	Senthilkumar Umapathy	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
68	Shashank P R	University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore	Audience
69	Shrinivas K R	Kuvempu University	Audience
70	Shwetank Verma	Indian Institute of Science (IISc)	Panelist
71	Sivarajan	French Institute of Pondicherry	Audience
72	Sreerupa Sen	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
73	Suhel Quader	National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS)
74	Suma Tagadur	Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions	Panelist
75	Sunil Abraham	Centre for Internet and Society	Speaker
76	Supriya K S	National Center for Biological Sciences	Audience
77	T Bala	Keystone Foundation - Flora of Nilgiri	Audience
78	Veeranagappa P	University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore	Audience
79	Vidyadhar Atkore	Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)	Audience
80	Vijay Barve	Diversity India	Panelist

Also see Western Ghats Portal: Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/summary-of-the-minutes-of-the-workshop-on-biodiversity-informatics

Alternative Approaches to Social Change

praskrishna — 2012-01-30T06:04:23Z

Review of Maesy Angelina’s essay, "Digital Natives’ Alternative Approach to Social Change", in Digital Alternatives with a Cause Book 2: To Think, pp.64-76 by Nuraini Juliastuti.

Dominant assumptions about social movements need a redefinition. They are not compatible with youth movements, which are mainly operated within the framework of contemporary technology development.

Although being acknowledged as ‘the potential future directions of activism’, the capability of digital-based movements to bring about concrete changes has been in doubt. It has been associated with degrading terms such as ‘slacktivism’ or ‘click activist’. Some scholars consider it a quasi-movement, and argue that it needs to be accompanied with “real” activism.

Each movement calls for a different analytical lens. The source of predicaments of the digital movement opponents revolves around the persistence of focusing on concrete aspects of a movement. Unless we consider the tangible aspects, a proper understanding of a digital movement cannot be realized.

Observations about intangible aspects of a movement will keep a research from clinging to activism with a capital A, and start seeing a gradation in the social movement practices. It is constructive and opens the door to analyses of multi-dimensional movements such as the Blank Noise initiative (India). Drawing on methods of identifying new developments to the field of social movement, Maesy examines some aspects of it: the issue, strategy, site of action, and internal mode of organization.

First, a straightforward summary of Blank Noise. It is a movement to address sexual harassment against women in public spaces in India. Sexual harassment includes staring, catcalls, groping, and is usually disregarded as a one-off, casual incident. It also takes under purview ‘eve teasing’, generally considered soft sexual harassment. Established in 2003, the main workspaces of the collective are a combination of street interventions and online campaigns mediated on social media sites such as blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter.

Blank Noise attempts to subvert populist notions of what activism is within culture. Artistic approaches are regarded not as merely illustrational, but integrated into the methods of drawing attention to sexual harassment.

It chooses not to see things through a simple black and white perspective, but from a more complex view; loose, not rigid, is an instructive term to explain the character of the movement that is held together by two stakeholders: youth and technology.

In the antecedent period—this essay provides little space for it and hence lacks a historical explanation—social movements were carried out by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The keyword ‘society empowerment’ was in application then; embedded within is the idea of power relations. The NGO activists are powerful agencies and therefore have the authority to empower others.

In the case of Blank Noise, it consciously disrupts the mainstream notion of what a social movement entails and at the same time, displays coherencies within the accepted movement’s principles: the collective thus offers alternative approaches. An alternative movement however, is indicative of a classic pattern within the trajectory of social movements - it is a natural occurrence in response to a static state of affairs. Negotiations of the appropriate ways to confront circumstances are accelerating, putting old concepts of voluntarism, political participation, social contribution, and the meaning of being an activist into fragile categorizations. They are all subject to constant reinterpretations.

A new question then arises: as local people acknowledge Blank Noise as an outstanding example of citizen activism in India, does this youth initiative differentiate itself from other youth movements of its kind?

Online spaces formerly built to showcase the profile of movement organizers have now transformed into collaborative workspaces to archive and advocate women’s right movement. Interactivity has permeated through online spaces, replacing the static nature which was earlier associated with activism-related websites. The distance between the initiators and the participants is disappearing. The initiators and the participants are no longer two separate entities and are now joint content producers.

Some literatures characterize a social movement as a form of intellectual intervention. It is the practice of social intervention where the power is arranged in a relatively clear intellectual hierarchy. The dynamics of the action spaces has blurred such a hierarchy. Nonetheless, the question of class is still worth asking.

The issues of the ideologies of technologies being used in a movement, how they are operated, the actors behind them, what discourses are being developed, whose interests do they speak on behalf of, are important matters to be further explored to bring forth a reflection on power dynamics.

An undemanding way to value a social movement is through impact examination. A common way to assess impact is by observing the tangible aspects of the movement or campaign: the number of participants in activities conducted (do men and women participate equally in them?); the number of meetings; the organization’s coverage; public response to the campaign; statistics of crime. It asserts that a significant impact can be achieved through concrete goals and demands.

The question of impact meets its philosophical turn when dealing with a grey issue such as normalization of street sexual violence. The meaning of street sexual violence is hard to pin down. One of the possible ways to cope with it is through a micro-movement. It is a strategy, which aims to create changes at the personal level. The meaning of empowerment is shifting. In the case of Blank Noise, as the author puts it, “they empower people through their experience with the collective”.

Blank Noise differs from other types of movements in their inability to identify the opponent. Or, rather, they live a situation where it is impossible to establish who and what the opponent is. Rather than merely seeing it as a representation of the faltering state, as many scholars usually do, the author sees it as a ‘grey productive gesture’. It directs the course of the movement to a constant dialogue with the meaning of participation. Often unintentionally, it engages in the search of the meaning of what one can contribute to the others, without having the need to incorporate in, or being absorbed into, old society empowerment jargon. It attempts to remake the language of a movement.

But how should an opponent be defined? And how should change be defined? Although indirectly, the discussion on ways of organizing the movement as well as articulating the issue—the uncertainty about their values included, points to the base of the debate on the concept of activism. As each context is walking its own social-technological life path, and the division between the debatable terms ‘quasi-activism’ and ‘real activism’ requires an elaborate explanation, what changes should social movements bring (and how ‘real’ should they be), is still a difficult question to answer.

Changes function both as the foundation and goal of the digital native movement. Much as they indicate hopefulness, changes often turn out to be grim and lead to frustrating facts. As alternative ways of social movements are developing and being performed in various contexts, in particular historical junctures many things remain the same. Instead of progress, a series of setbacks become apparent.

It is as if each new movement’s strategy would bring back the possibilities of reversals and stagnancies, putting causes and choices in question. It is not about the seemingly clear separation between decisiveness and indecisiveness. This is the time when being decisive offers clichéd, predictable acts, which are often twisted into an intense, conservative attitude. This is the time when being indecisive is promisingly progressive and demonstrating the signs of thinking critically. It may seem indefinite, but it provides spaces for resiliency, an important character to develop amid the chaotic situation.

Nuraini Juliastuti is the co-founder of KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (http://kunci.or.id/) established in 1999 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She is currently a PhD student at Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands, focusing on popular music in Southeast Asia.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/media-coverage/alternative-approaches-to-social-change-1

Twitter’s Censorship Move Aimed at Regaining China?

praskrishna — 2012-01-30T04:54:51Z

Twitter, the popular social networking site for micro-blogging, has announced it is open to content censorship and region-based filtering, if required by law. The service boasts nearly 300 million users from across the world. Vinod Yalburgi writes this in the International Business Times.

In a Twitter post - "Tweets Must Still Flow", the service's management has stated: "Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country, while keeping it available in the rest of the world."

Twitter's drastic move comes in the wake of recent U.S. government allegations against Internet sites like Google, Yahoo and Facebook, regarding the need to regulate and filter controversial user-generated content. Both Google and Facebook have made similar commitments.

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However, it must be seen if either of the three do follow through with those commitments.

Meanwhile, experts quoted in a report by The Times of India, where too social networking Web sites are coming under the scanner, suggest the lack of clarity in laws in countries like India means Twitter can only act reactively; the situation in Germany or France, for example, where laws about pro-Nazi propaganda are codified, they can act proactively.

Another post by Twitter speaks of a new feature that will allow the site's administrators to enable region-based selective content blocking, thereby allowing region-sensitive information to remain hidden from users in those areas. The post also cited the example of Germany and France: "Some countries differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content."

There is also speculation that one reason for this decision could be Twitter's plans to re-enter the Chinese market, where the micro-blogging service has been banned since 2009. Incidentally, China boasts the largest number of Internet users in the world, at this moment.

The hope, for Twitter, must be the promise to block sensitive tweets (or those the Chinese government deems offensive) without affecting the global audience. Twitter has rarely resorted to such censorship practices. However, the company does not seem unwilling to shy away from that responsibility.

"...if and when we are required to withhold a tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld," the company's statement said.

"The region-specific blocking was already being used on video hosting websites like Youtube and Hulu, where due to the wishes of copyright owners many videos are not available in India. Twitter is extending this technology to its tweets," said Pranesh Prakash at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India.

"We have to take care of the sensibilities of our people. Cultural ethos is very important to us," Kapil Sibal, the Indian Telecom Minister, said last month, during his request to both Google and Facebook to filter offensive content.

The trend of social networking Web sites resisting censorship seems a thing of the past. Prakash recalls an incident in 2011, when the U.S. government sought detailed information about a Twitter user, only to be challenged, by the Internet company, in court.

Read the original published by International Business Times on 28 January 2012. Pranesh Prakash was quoted in it.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/twitter2019s-censorship-move-aimed-at-regaining-china

Google’s privacy policy raises hackles

praskrishna — 2012-01-30T03:58:57Z

Have you ever used Google to search for a restaurant while you were logged in its network using your Google id? Or shared information about your trip to Goa with your friends on Google +? Or watched belly dance on YouTube? Or looked for Sunny Leone pictures on Google images? If yes, Google knows about it. Javed Anwer wrote on article on this. It is published in the Times of India on 26 January 2012.

And according to its new privacy policy it is going to put this information to some use.

The web giant says the new privacy policy will allow it to offer better services, including more relevant search results. But web experts have raised concerns over potential misuse of data and breach of privacy. According to Google's new privacy policy that will come into effect from March 1, the company is "getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google services and replacing them with one that's shorter, easier to read" and something that will enable it to "create intuitive experience across Google" . Unlike in the past when Google had allowed users to choose personalized services, this time there is no option to opt out.

For an end-user this means that whatever information he shares through Google searches, Gmail, Google +, Picassa etc will be used to customize Google services for him. That the move is significant can be gauged from the fact that Google has provided a link to the new policy directly under its search engine on main page, something that the company rarely does. Google users will also be notified about the policy change through an email. "Our new privacy policy makes clear that, if you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we'll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience," said Alma Whitten, Google's director of privacy, in a post on the company's official blog.

Whitten gave some example of how this information will be used. "We can make search better - figuring out what you really mean when you type in Apple, Jaguar or Pink. We can provide more relevant ads too," she wrote. "We can provide reminders that you're going to be late for a meeting based on your location , your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day. Or ensure that our spelling suggestions, even for your friends' names, are accurate because you've typed them before."

The privacy policy from Google is at the heart of its new business strategy as it works to keep the search engine relevant and its services fresh in the face of social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook. It is also prompted by the proliferation of devices like smartphones and tablets. However, privacy experts are not amused. Sunil Abraham, director of Centre for Internet and Society, said the new changes are not good for a consumer's privacy.

"I understand that Google collects the data so that it can build a 360 degree profile of a user and based on the information serve relevant advertisements . But there is no reason for them to store this data for long. Storing data makes it prone to misuse by authorities as well as corporations," said Abraham. Another, problem, he said is that different services are used for different purposes. "I don't want my bakery shop owner to know what kind of medicines Ibuy from the nearby medical store," said Abraham.

Are you being watched?

What |

For an end-user the new policy means that whatever information he shares through Google searches, Gmail, Google+, Picassa, etc will be used to customize Google services for him

Why |

The privacy policy is at the heart of Google's business strategy as it tries to keep the search engine relevant in the face of social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook

Concerns |

It's instrusive as online activity is tracked; storing data makes it prone to misuse by authorities as well as corporations

The original was published in the Times of India. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in it.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/google2019s-privacy-policy-raises-hackles

Gandhi, Freedom, and the Dilemmas of Copyright

praskrishna — 2012-04-28T04:11:01Z

To commemorate Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary, the Centre for Internet and Society cordially invites you to a talk by Prof. Shyamkrishna Balganesh of the University of Pennsylvania on Gandhi, Freedom, and the Dilemmas of Copyright on 30 January 2012 at 6.00 p.m.

When the copyright on Rabindranath Tagore's writings were to expire, his estate sought (and got) an extension in copyright term. But when the copyright on Mahatma Gandhi's writings were to expire, the trustees did not seek such an extension, in deference to Gandhi's views on copyright. On the cover of the first English edition of the Hind Swaraj, it states: "No Rights Reserved". Was Gandhi a Wikipedian at heart, and a prophet who foresaw the 'copyright wars' and had his own visions of how far free culture and free knowledge activism could and could not go?

Description

Central to modern discussions of copyright law is the conflict between copyright’s role as a market-based mechanism of cultural production and its detrimental effects on access to knowledge, free speech, and cultural creativity. So divisive is this debate in the world of copyright law today that some have characterized it as the ongoing “copyright wars”. In January 2009, when copyright in all of Gandhi’s works expired, to the absolute surprise of many, the Navjivan Trust,to whom Gandhi had transferred the copyright in his works, chose not to seek a statutory extension of copyright.

The Trust’s firm decision rested in large part on Gandhi’s unease with copyright law, and his reluctant acceptance of its benefits. Gandhi’s opinions on copyright law reveal a rather concerted attempt to grapple with the innumerable public and private trade-offs that are central to the institution, which are today seen as the very basis of the copyright wars. Much like Gandhi’s views on other issues, they reveal a pragmatism, nuance, and creative engagement, which likely emanate from Gandhi’s training as a lawyer. Instead of simplistically rejecting the institution in its entirety, Gandhi saw copyright law for what it is—an important social compromise—and sought to engage with it in a way that tracked his beliefs on other issues.

This talk will argue that the nuances of Gandhi’s engagement with copyright law hold important lessons for thinking about copyright law in society, and for managing its complex trade-offs. Gandhi’s thinking on the topic anticipated many of the modern dilemmas about the structure and function of copyright law--such as the role of exclusivity, the importance of control and integrity, and the costs and benefits of licensing revenues. And while Gandhi may not have had a clear (or unambiguously correct) solution to any of them, he almost certainly asked the right questions.

About the Speaker

Shyam Balganesh’s scholarship focuses on understanding how intellectual property and innovation policy can benefit from the use of ideas, concepts and structures from different areas of the common law. His most recent work tries to understand copyright law’s pre-requisite of “copying” for liability, as a mechanism of pluralistic decision-making that allows it to incorporate both utilitarian and rightsbased considerations into its functioning.

Balganesh received his J.D. from the Yale Law School, where he was an Articles and Essays Editor of the Yale Law Journal and a Student Fellow at the Information Society Project (ISP). Prior to that he spent two years as a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, and received a B.C.L. and an M.Phil in Law from Oxford University.

His recent publications include: ‘“Hot News’: The Enduring Myth of Property in News,” 111 Columbia Law Review 419 (2011); “The Pragmatic Incrementalism of Common Law Intellectual Property,” 63 Vanderbilt Law Review 1543 (2010); and “Foreseeability and Copyright Incentives,” 122 Harvard Law Review 1569 (2009), among others. He is also currently editing a collection of scholarly essays on the topic of intellectual property and the common law, scheduled to be published by the Cambridge University Press in 2012.

VIDEO

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/gandhi-freedom-and-copyright

Google to change privacy policy to use personal info of users

praskrishna — 2012-01-30T05:03:55Z

It is a warning for users of Google and other Social Networking sites. Who are using these sites for searching anything they want to know and sharing their personal life with friends, colleagues and relatives. If you have ever used Google for searching any place, restaurant or shared information about your personal life with your friends on Google and other social networking sites, or you have watched adult stuff on YouTube, if your answer is yes, Google knows about it. And according to its new privacy policy Google is going to put this information to some use. Sheetal Ranga's article was published in Punjab Newsline on 27 January 2012.

It is claimed by the web enormous that according to new privacy policy, better service will be provided to its users, including more relevant search results. And other side the web experts have expressed their concerns over potential misuse of data and defy of privacy. Google's new privacy policy will come into effect from 1 March 2012, said by Google.

Google provide service which will be shorter and easier to read and something that will enable it to create spontaneous experience across Google. Google had allowed users to choose personalized services; “unlike” this time there is no option to pick for the users.

The new policy of Google has made some people anxious over their privacy issues. The new policy is being adopted by Google, SafeGov monitors security issues for federal, state and local government is not happy with it.

A security analyst, Jeff ( SafeGov) said, "Google should not be data-mining information in e-mails, text messages, searches and documents that workers are putting into Google services. It’s a matter of not making government workers unnecessarily exposed to hackers and to inadvertent disclosures of information."

The Vice President of Google ,Amit Singh claims that Google’s new privacy policy for consumer data is antiquated by data privacy provisions in contracts with government agencies and other organization that use the paid version of Google Apps. Google will maintain our endeavor customers’ data in conformity with the confidentiality and security obligations provided to their domain, he said.

The new policy of Google has made some people edgy over their privacy issues. SafeGov monitors security issues for federal, state and local government agencies are very unhappy with the new policy of Google. It is also said by Sunil Abraham, director of Centre for Internet and Society that the new changes are not good for a consumer's privacy.

Director of privacy Alma Whitten has given some example of how this information will be used. "We can make search better - figuring out what you really mean when you type in Apple, Jaguar or Pink. We can provide more relevant ads too," she wrote. "We can provide reminders that you're going to be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day. Or ensure that our spelling suggestions, even for your friends' names, are accurate because you've typed them before."

Other side after the cross-checked the contract between Google and the city of Los Angele by Gould, claimed that he didn’t think through the consequences for government users.

Punjab Newsline published this story. Sunil Abraham was quoted in it.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/google-to-change-privacy-policy

Workshop on the Standardization of Kannada Computing Terminology

praskrishna — 2012-01-27T04:55:14Z

A two day workshop on the standardization of Kannada computing terminologies will be organized on January 28-29, 2012 at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), Bangalore. CIS is co-organizing this event along with Sanchaya under the Frequently Used Entries for Localization (FUEL) project.

The workshop aims at the community review and standardization of frequently encountered computing terminologies in Kannada. Also, this workshop is a first of its kind wherein discussion amongst Kannada linguists, translators, journalists, writers and users would take place and a consensus would reach upon the final translation of computing terminologies in Kannada. FUEL Kannada Evaluation meet mainly aims at solving the problem of inconsistency and lack of standardization in software translations.

FUEL tries to provide a standardized and consistent computer interface for users. FUEL Kannada Evaluation meet will be a concrete move towards the aforementioned problem and after the meet, FUEL will come with the standard translation of entries in Kannada language for the first time that are frequently being used by a normal user. This is a community project initiated by Red Hat. We invite linguists, translators, and users to participate who are serious to the cause of localization of computer in Kannada language.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/standardization-of-kannada-computing-terminology

Geekup on Open Data in Bangalore

praskrishna — 2012-01-31T03:38:25Z

HasGeek in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society invite you to a talk by Hapee de Groot on 25 January 2012 at CIS office in Bangalore.

Hapee de Groot

Hapee de Groot has worked on a wide range of issues around Open Source Data, ICT and Media Development, Access, Security, ICT for Development (ICT4D) and Localisation of Content, for a global stage towards greater transparency and accountability with the Dutch NGO Hivos since 2001. Before that, in the nineties, he was an advocate for free public internet access, working with xs4all and the digital city Amsterdam (DDS). He has also served as an editor for OneWorld International and ran the Digital Divide Campaign which turned into a still ongoing digital channel at DigitalOpportunity.org.

Hapee is one of the earliest generations of hackers and is highly influential on the subjects of ICT and Technology, Open Source, Social Media, and Technology in Africa, according to the influence measures on Klout. This is his 5th visit to India where he has worked previously on Mission 2009 and setting up access for remote areas in India, in collaboration with Toxic Links and Sarai, Delhi. He was a participant at the InfoActivism Camp in Bangalore, 2008.

His current interest is in the field of Open Government Data and he partners with six international donor agencies to run the Transparency and Accountability Initiative. He brings together his technical skills, policy experience and development research to train people in understanding the politics, responsibilities and risks associated with open data platforms and helps NGOs and governments in producing secure and citizen friendly platforms of data collection, distribution and dissemination.

Open Data

From his background working for a development organisation (HIVOS) Hapee will talk about Open Data and its use for citizen engagement. This is a twofold process. On the one side there is the history of the traditional NGO and their limited impact on the system. On the other side there are the Open Government Data initiatives pushed from within administrations, including by the Obama administration. The question is of how both can benefit from each other.

Hapee has some examples of citizen driven projects in Africa that HIVOS supports. He will present on these projects, including on data visualization and technical platforms. He would like to hear from the audience (that's you!) on similar projects in India.

The other side of the coin is privacy which is a bigger issue in India than in Africa. How can we be open while still protecting privacy? Hapee will lead a discussion on this.

Registrations are closed

Wednesday, 25 January 2012, Bangalore

Welcome with tea, coffee and snacks	6.00 p.m. - 6.15 p.m.
Lightning Talks	6.15 p.m - 7.00 p.m.
Open Data	7.00 p.m. - 8.00 p.m.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/geekup-bangalore

Tangled Web

praskrishna — 2012-01-23T08:42:01Z

Government and social networking sites at loggerheads as debate rages over freedom of expression, writes Kumar Anshuman and Nikita Doval in this story published in the Week on Saturday, 21 January 2012.

Journalist-turned-activist Vinay Rai has succeeded where Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal failed—putting the fear of law in the minds of India's bloating community of bloggers, surfers, plain e-wayfarers and inter(net)lopers.

Blogs haven't yet been blocked, but a Delhi High Court bench asked 21 internet firms, including Google, Facebook and YouTube, to look at China and have stringent checks on their content on January 19. It was enough to set the net on fire. Compulsive tweeter Shashi Tharoor, who lost his ministerial berth for over-tweeting, wondered whether phone companies could "be sued if someone sends a defamatory, obscene SMS". Said IT expert Niyam Bhushan: "If you fall on the ground and hurt your nose, you can't sue gravity. At a time when people in autocratic countries are using social media to bring in democracy, a democratic country like India is trying to restrict it!"

When the summons for the case was first sent to the companies in December, a number of respondents who were based outside India failed to answer. Said cyber crime expert Pavan Duggal: "Companies are observing the IT Act more in breach than in observance."

The debate was originally kick-started by Sibal last December when he summoned the chiefs of social networking sites and showed them offensive material from their sites. However, they pleaded helplessness. Sibal's subsequent press conference drew more flak, and he retreated saying, "The government does not believe in interfering in the freedom of the press, but we have to take care of the sensibilities of our people."

It was then that Rai petitioned a Delhi criminal court, accusing 21 social networking sites of hosting objectionable and inflammatory content which would create enmity and violence among religious communities. In a sealed envelope, he presented 62 items downloaded from different web sites and got three witnesses.

Though the companies were ordered to appear before court on January 13, they challenged the order in the Delhi High Court, saying that curbing the content is technically impossible. "Human interference is not possible, and it is not feasible to check such incidents given that billions of people across the globe are posting articles and other material on their web sites," argued Mukul Rohatgi, former additional solicitor general, representing Google India. "Certain keywords can be blocked or not allowed," said Yogesh Bansal, founder and CEO of ApnaCircle.com. "However, filtering or having 100 per cent control over the content posted is technically not possible."

According to the Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011, if the companies receive complaints about unlawful or objectionable online material, they have 36 hours to remove it, failing which the aggrieved party can approach court or the Cyber Law Appellate Tribunal. "The rules purportedly try to regulate and control the intermediaries like interactive web sites and social media sites, but, in effect, regulate content generated or posted by users," said Prasanth Sugathan, legal counsel, Software Freedom Law Center.

The 'intermediaries', as defined in the Information Technology Act, 2000, include a broad list of players ranging from internet service providers like Airtel and MTNL to blogging platforms like Blogspot and WordPress to auction sites like eBay and search engines like Google to cyber cafes. The new rules mandate the intermediaries to impose a set of rules and regulations on users.

The rules specify the terms of regulations, which include a broad list of unlawful content—information that is grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, related to paedophilia, libellous, invasive of privacy, hateful, racially objectionable, disparaging, encourages money laundering or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever.

"These are very broad terms which have not been defined very well," said Duggal. "The service provider is not even required to come to a judgment. Only after they receive a complaint or are notified by the government can they act." According to Delhi-based cyber law consultant Karnika Seth, it will be helpful if illustrations are given to explain the nature of the crime, as in the Indian Penal Code. "This is missing in the IT Act which leaves terms like 'blasphemy' and 'obscenity' open to wide interpretations."

The companies claim they stick to the rules. "We have a review committee, which decides on complaints in case of any content posted on our sites," said a representative of one of the accused companies. In the current case, the official claimed that they were not shown the content presented before court. "The current accusation is baseless," he said.

There have been several instances in the past when social networking companies acted on complaints. In 2009, a young Keralite was booked for posting offensive remarks against Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray and his party on a social networking site and the material was removed. In May 2010, the controversial 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!' in Facebook was blocked in India, following protests from Muslims.

In August last year, the cyber wing of the Punjab Crime Branch charge-sheeted a Sunny Dhiman for allegedly uploading a pornographic video of a female student from Chandigarh on YouTube. Following complaints, the video was removed.

According to Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society, the companies are over-compliant. "We did a policy sting operation wherein we sent fraudulent notices to big web sites," he said. "They never bothered to check the veracity of the complaints, but complied with everything we asked for. In one case where we asked for the removal of three comments, they removed all 13. So there is already a private censorship underway. The existing IT Act is draconian and has led to great dilution of privacy."

According to Google Transparency Report, Google received government requests for removing 358 items from its services between January and June last year. Fifty-one per cent of the requests were partially or fully complied with. "In addition, we received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 236 communities and profiles from Orkut that were critical of a local politician. We did not comply with it as the content did not violate our community standards or local law," said the report.

Both Duggal and Seth said the government's demand for pre-screening and monitoring content was not feasible. "In the IT Act there is not a single phrase which requires pre-screening or moderation under the law," said Duggal. The government has a right to stop a company from displaying content which it deems perverse to Indian standards. But, as Seth said, "How do you define Indian standards? They are ever changing."

Web sites can put certain filters in place, but even they have limitations. As the counsel for the companies argued in court, the word 'sex' even comes up in documents like ration cards and passports. So blocking them is not feasible.

Though freedom of expression is a fundamental right, it is not absolute. Article 19(2) states that the state may make a law imposing "reasonable restrictions” on the right to freedom of speech on eight grounds mentioned in Clause (2)—security of state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, contempt of court, defamation, incitement to an offence and sovereignty and integrity of India.

The evidence presented before court clearly points to violation of some of these rules. "Freedom of expression doesn't mean mutilating or morphing pictures of leaders of different religious beliefs,” said Zafaryab Jilani, a lawyer. “This is a crime and the persons responsible should be accused under Section 153(A)."

Said BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain: "Anything hurting religious sentiments should not be allowed. But the government is trying to stop certain political viewpoints, which is wrong." Senior Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed said freedom of expression should be "in a proper, democratic way without demeaning anyone."

Team Anna member Kumar Vishwas blamed social networking sites for hosting his videos without consent. "The main part of my speech has been deliberately removed and hence it doesn't present the fact which I said." Though he has complained, the videos have not been removed. However, he said that social networking was the voice of young India and it shouldn't be curbed in any way.

According to columnist and social analyst Syed Mubin Zehra, "There should be a check or verification process to have an internet identity." However, she is against a total ban. "We are not China, and think about the good things which the internet has contributed to society."

The corporate sector is increasingly using social networking sites to build stronger ties with consumers. For brands like Airtel, having a Facebook page meant reaching out to Generation Y, who spend a large amount of time with computers. "With Facebook there is dialogue, it becomes a barometer of customer satisfaction level," said Marzin Shroff, CEO (direct sales) and senior vice-president (marketing), Eureka Forbes, which started using Facebook in 2010 and has more than 1.6 lakh 'likes' on its page.

Cleartrip.com, a major online travel company, heavily uses the social networking platform. "We have always been early adopters of social media tools with a blog, customer forum, Twitter presence and a Facebook page," said Hrush Bhatt, co-founder and director (product & strategy), Cleartrip. "There are multiple cases where extremely irate customers have been vocal on their blogs or Twitter and our team has successfully reached out to them, taken care of their problems and turned them from complainers to evangelists."

Corporate honchos are worried over the ongoing controversy. "Banning social networking sites will hurt business as social media is now becoming a source of business for many," said Mohandas Pai, former director (HR) at Infosys Ltd. The worry is equally troubling a real estate company like Prestige Group. "As we have a very strong NRI customer base, such sites also make it possible for us to address their every need and give them an opportunity to clarify their queries with us,” said Uzma Irfan, executive director, corporate communications, Prestige Group. “Hence, ban of any free media such as Facebook shall only create a void in the marketing efforts of companies."

Some experts, however, are of the opinion that a ban or restriction on social networking sites will only have a short-term impact on some companies as many of them will change their online advertising strategy to deal with the situation. "Companies are smart enough to design new innovative advertising strategies," said Sridhar Ramanujam, CEO of brand-comm, a Bangalore-based brand communications consultancy. "Take, for instance, the liquor companies. Though liquor advertisements are banned in different places, such companies are doing more and more of surrogate advertising in the form of mineral water."

The only kind of censorship that can work on the net is self-imposed and, perhaps, a few guidelines in netiquette might not be out of line, said Seth. "Netiquette culture needs to be developed. The common man has to be explained what is legal and illegal. Otherwise there will be rampant cyber crime without people even realising that they are indulging in it."
with Abhinav Singh and Sharmista Chaudhury

Sunil Abraham was quoted in this story.

Read the original published in the Week

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/tangled-web

POV: Should user-generated content be monitored?

praskrishna — 2012-01-19T12:46:26Z

After being in the dock for carrying 'objectionable' content, Google and Facebook, along with15 other websites, are fighting for what they call internet freedom. Wikipedia went dark to protest the Web Piracy Bill being introduced in the US. afaqs! speaks to industry experts to find out if a move to monitor content can backfire.

Paritosh Joshi
CEO, STAR CJ Live

When asked to offer my two-bit on whether user-generated content can be monitored, my immediate response was laden with invective expressions. Any publication that caters to people of refined and/or delicate tastes would find it hard to publish. For what it is worth, here it is, with bits bleeped out: "Only a *bleep*er, would reasonably suggest monitoring user-generated content. Or else, her/his name is Wen JiaBao or Kim Jong Number Un or something".

How big is this UGC thing anyway? Take a relatively small example. Twitter crossed 200 million tweets a day in June, 2011. At even 5 per cent compounded monthly growth rate, that should have ballooned to 280 million a day now. And, we haven't even begun talking about Facebook. Unless, of course, you choose to do a PR China and simply firewall it right out of reach.

Guess what! It isn't going to work because everyone will start figuring our proxy servers. Or perhaps you, or someone called Sybil or Sillable or Sibaling Rivalry (whatever) decided to say, to hell with Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. In which case, there is, quite literally, nothing left to say.

My 13-year-old figured out how to beat Net Nanny when she was 10. And someone thinks he can have a Net Supernanny to cover everyone? That ship has sailed. Deal with it.

Bharat Kapadia,
Founder, ideas@bharatkapadia.com

Gone are the days when a piece of news could be vetted and an editor could control what was being published. In these modern times, content generation has become real-time, making it practically impossible to monitor it. With the scope of the internet being so large and new ways to publish content coming up rapidly, it becomes physically and technically impossible to keep a check.

This is a classic case of shoot the messenger who brings bad news. Just because a website brings up objectionable content on a search does not make it punishable. What is right and wrong is a matter of judgment, and is totally subjective.

On a lighter note, to know why Wikipedia was blacked out for a day, one will have to probably refer to Wikipedia itself!

Sunil Abraham

Executive director, Centre for Internet and Society

User-generated content is already heavily monitored. Be it Facebook or Wikipedia, these sites are heavily monitored by persons and machines. Bots monitoring pornography via image processing, intellectual property via watermarking and pattern recognition, and ban-lists via semantic analysis are already used to ensure that content is compliant with the law of the land, and with the usually even more restrictive site or community "terms of use".

The World Wide Web has, for most parts, gone extinct. Under the Information Technology Act 2000, amended in 2008, take-down notices can be sent to remove illegal content. Our research indicates that even the largest national and international intermediaries happily over-comply with frivolous complaints and only bother about freedom of expression when it undermines their business models. Unfortunately, the IT Act and its associated rules have severely diluted free speech rights for Indians. Now, the government hopes to convince intermediaries to dilute their own terms of reference and step-up enforcement levels.

We should not fool ourselves into thinking that private sector companies like Google will defend our fundamental rights. The next Parliament session is the last opportunity for parliamentarians to ask for the revocation of the rules for intermediaries, cyber-cafes and reasonable security practices.

Alok Kejriwal

CEO, Games2win

I feel that user-generated content should not be monitored, but moderated. And, this responsibility lies with the users or consumers. The reason for this is simple - wisdom of the crowd is more powerful than the wisdom of one.

On the other hand, sites like Google and Facebook, which are in the dock for carrying objectionable content, are being plain arrogant. They have forgotten their purpose for being here. These companies must realise that just because we Indians have a great press and judicial system, they do not have the freedom to publish anything that is derogatory to our culture. In my view, they are behaving like spoilt American brats, who have no respect for another culture, mythology and values.

Anupam Mukerji

The fake IPL player

Co-founder, Pitch Invasion

There are few amongst us who wouldn't want to be amused by a speaking parrot which regales us with stuff it's trained to speak. But, what would you do if your speaking parrot refused to toe your line, spoke only the truth with scant regard to diplomacy and political correctness, spilling your beans to visitors every day?

For far too long, the political class has survived and thrived by keeping the media in covert and overt control, thereby directing public opinion where they wanted. Online social media has changed the rules of this game.

The medium isn't the criminal. Acting against a medium is worse than even shooting the messenger.

The new age citizen is a different animal from any of the past. More aware, more travelled, more opinionated and more demanding. This is a species you try to control at your own peril. But, if you try to embrace it in the right spirit, it will reciprocate in kind.

The constitution gives us the right to voice our opinions without fear. The same constitution also prohibits us from spreading lies, defaming people, inciting violence or acting in an anti-national manner.

India needs an environment of freedom and fearlessness because without this, we will be nothing but 'a China with poor infrastructure'.

Nisha Menon's blog post was originally published in afaqs! on 19 January 2012

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/pov-should-user-generated-content-be-monitored