Centre for Internet and Society

Freedom of Expression and Privacy

praskrishna — 2014-02-28T04:45:52Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/freedom-of-expression-and-privacy.pdf

Freedom of Expression (Poster)

praskrishna — 2012-05-21T13:01:54Z

The event is taking place in Goa on June 2, 2012.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/freedom-of-expression-privacy-roundtable

Freedom of Expression

praskrishna — 2011-03-22T04:34:57Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/FreedomofSpeech_20110316.jpg

Freedom of Expression

praskrishna — 2014-09-06T15:25:24Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/freedom-expression.zip

Freedom of Expression

praskrishna — 2014-04-22T08:54:42Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/freedom-of-expression.zip

Freedom debate takes a new course

praskrishna — 2012-07-22T16:34:54Z

The focus is now on the dubious roles played by private entities on what goes online, says Deepa Kurup in this article published in the Hindu on July 1, 2012.

Deepa Kurup's article was published in the Hindu on July 1, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Debates on censoring the Internet, till recently, largely pitted the ‘people’, that is Net users, against the government which was perceived as seeking to stifle free speech on the Web, a medium that is believed to be vastly powerful and democratic. However, in recent weeks, the focus of the discourse has shifted from shrill anti-government stances to the dubious role that private entities — that often projected themselves as protectors of free speech in the earlier debates — play in controlling this important resource.

That there are various private interests — ranging from Internet service providers, Web companies to the entertainment industry — at stake here is a no-brainer. However, this came to the fore only last month, when two major Internet service providers, Airtel and Reliance, in a pre-emptive move to comply with a Madras High Court order seeking to curb piracy of regional films, blocked access to at least a dozen sites. The blocked sites not only included file-sharing sites but also legitimate Web businesses such as video-sharing sites Vimeo and Daily Motion, that largely host high-quality original videos, and bookmarking sites such as Pastebin.

What was noteworthy is that the High Court did not order the blocking of these websites, and merely ruled that piracy of regional films such as Dammu and 3 be curbed. The order was in response to a petition by makers of the Tamil film 3, yes, the same movie whose claim to fame was the viral Internet hit ‘Kolaveri di’, made popular because thousands of netizens freely shared and viewed the video.

Not limited to regional films, there has been a steady increase in the number of Indian movie production houses, such as Reliance Entertainment Ltd. and Viacom18 Motion Pictures, seeking ex-parte injunctions (popularly known as John Doe or Ashok Kumar orders against unknown persons) to curb piracy of their copyrighted material. Most recently, Viacom18 went to court seeking pre-emptive orders for last Friday’s release, Gangs of Wasseypur, a move that in the context of increased awareness on such laws and their chilling effect on the Internet, drew much flak from netizens. Even in the past, ISPs and Web companies, eager to sidestep possible legal landmines, are known to have blocked entire sites in response to government requests.

Partial Relief?

Last week, the Madras High Court, ruling on an appeal filed by a consortium of ISPs, decreed that ISPs need only block a few specific URLs that carry pirated content, and not entire websites. Following this clarification from the court, ISPs unblocked the sites.

Though many rejoiced over the order, seeing it as an indicator of the success of campaigns — some overt and others more covert such as the hacktivist group Anonymous — others have been more guarded in their response to this.

Pranesh Prakash, lawyer and copyright expert at the Centre for Internet and Society, feels that the victory is only partial given that the court has endorsed partial blocking of Web links. He says: “Under Indian copyright law, ISPs cannot be liable for copyright infringement committed by their users. So while it is good that the court clarified that its order was limited in its scope, it is possible to read even this as going far beyond that which is allowed under the law.” Mr. Prakash points out that the copyright law can be used for censorship, for instance, in the case of the Satish Seth video that Reliance Entertainment has gotten removed from YouTube by citing copyright infringement.”

Hacktivist Exposes

The Satish Seth video was one among many links part of a list published by hacktivist group Anonymous India, on the blog Kafila. The group claimed to have hacked into the servers of Reliance Communication and found a list of 434 Web addresses that were blocked.

Not surprisingly, at least 45 of them were blocked on Reliance request and had little to do with government or court orders. While Reliance has denied the hack and said that list is not authentic, to the media, the list brought to the fore the uneasy role that private companies could play in who controls content on the Web.

Though it is unknown what the Satish Seth links originally contained, a simple search on the web reveals that Mr. Seth is a senior employee in the Reliance Group. These links were later unblocked.

Though some of the distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks orchestrated by the group that calls itself Anonymous India targeted government websites, a major target have been these private companies.

In that sense, the contribution of Anonymous India has been interesting in changing the narrative of the discourse to include how private companies that have off late taken to sermonising on the merits of unrestricted freedom on the Web, could easily manipulate the system to further their own interests.

This uneasy equation was also exposed in a ‘sting operation’ conducted by the CIS in 2010, in which Web companies eagerly complied to unsubstantiated or dummy take-down notices sent out.

While the first round of activism focussed on the government’s proposal to clampdown on what it called ‘hate speech’ on the Web by fixing intermediary liabilities (through guidelines it notified in April 2011), this round has dealt with the complex issue of copyrights. A difficult issue worldwide, like in the U.S. for instance where the controversial Bill SOPA sought to block sites that host copyrighted material, here too huge entertainment lobbies, backed by big business, are likely to play a bigger and more forceful role in this debate.

This is apparent even in the Google Transparency Report, released earlier this month, which shows the number of copyright removal notices received for Search (not including its other services such as YouTube and Blogger) in the past year is a climbing statistic.

In June alone, Google Search received 2,221,212 takedown requests from copyright owners and reporting organisations. Not surprisingly, though the list of requestors is topped by software major Microsoft, among other top contenders are all the major production houses.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/freedom-debate-takes-a-new-course

Freedom Continuum

praskrishna — 2013-12-27T11:16:35Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/freedom-continuum.pdf

Freebasics

praskrishna — 2016-01-27T02:46:36Z

Freebasics

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Freebasics.png

Free Speech Poster

praskrishna — 2019-03-16T02:01:01Z

Free Speech Poster

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/FreeSpeechSymposium_Poster_02.jpg

Free Speech Online in India under Attack?

praskrishna — 2012-03-02T03:03:24Z

When the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal suggested pre-censorship for a range of popular online platforms and social networking sites, the suggestion was met by a barrage of criticism, which soon forced him to back down. Yet Sibal’s suggestion is not the only threat to free speech on the Internet in India today. Legislation such as the Intermediary Due Diligence Rules and Cyber Café Rules (also jointly known as the IT Rules) issued in April 2011 is equally dangerous for free speech online.

Achal Prabhala, Anja Kovacs and Lawrence Liang will join Sunil Abraham to discuss in more detail some of the direct threats to freedom of expression online in India today including the larger legal and social context of freedom of expression and censorship, control and resistance in which they have to be understood and the steps that can be taken to ensure that substantive protections for freedom of expression online will be put into place.

The Speakers

Achal Prabhala

Achal is based in Bangalore, Karnataka. He is a researcher, activist and writer in the areas of access to knowledge and access to medicine besides being a member of the Advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Anja Kovacs

Anja works with the Internet Democracy Project, which engages in research and advocacy on the promises and challenges that the Internet poses for democracy and social justice in the developing world.

Lawrence Liang

Lawrence is a researcher and lawyer based in Bangalore, who is known for his legal campaigns on issues of public concern. He is a co-founder of the Alternative Law Forum and works on the intersection of law, technology and culture. He has worked closely with filmmakers and artists in a number of anti-censorship campaigns.

The Moderator

Sunil Abraham

Sunil is the Executive Director of the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based non-profit organization. He is also a social entrepreneur and Free Software advocate. He founded Mahiti in 1998 which aims to reduce the cost and complexity of Information and Communication Technology for the Voluntary Sector by using Free Software.

This event is jointly organised by the Internet Democracy Project and the Centre for Internet and Society. Join us at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, on Wednesday 21 December, at 5.30 pm.

VIDEOS

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/free-speech-online-in-india-under-attack

Free Speech Agenda

praskrishna — 2019-03-16T02:22:45Z

Free Speech Agenda

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/FreeSpeechSymposium_Agenda_02.jpg

Free Speech

praskrishna — 2019-02-07T11:00:05Z

Internet Freedom

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/FreeSpeechSymposium_Poster_01.jpg

Free Speech

praskrishna — 2013-06-03T09:15:45Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/free-speech

Free Software

praskrishna — 2013-07-31T08:50:41Z

To spread awareness on free software and its philosophy, Free Software Movement of Karnataka (FSMK) in partnership with Jnana Vikas Institute of Technology, Bidadi, organized a 9-days workshop between July 20 and 28 at the Institute campus near Bidadi to focus on free software is real freedom to compute.

Click to read the news by M.K. Madhusoodan published in the Times of India on July 20, 2013. For more pictures, click here

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the workshop and made a presentation about Wikipedia for the participants on July 24, 2013.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/free-software

Free Net advocates flay Trai's public Wi-Fi paper

praskrishna — 2016-11-20T03:21:41Z

Stakeholders vouching for a cheap and open Internet have flagged concerns over privacy and regulatory hurdles.

The article by Anita Babu was published in the Business Standard on November 20, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

With the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India releasing its consultation paper on public Wi-Fi this week, stakeholders vouching for a cheap and open Internet have flagged concerns over privacy and regulatory hurdles.

The Internet Freedom Foundation has pointed out that the proposed regulations might lead to invasion of privacy and interfere with the freedom of hotspot providers to operate freely.

“While we welcome Trai’s vision that increasing the number of public Wi-Fi hotspots could be the way to bringing the majority of Indians online, the proposals turn out to be regressive and poorly thought out,” said Aravind Ravi Sulekha, co-founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation.

The regulator in its consultation paper issued earlier this week proposed hotspot providers would have to register with the government and users could access hotspots only after paying using a service tied to their Aadhaar number. It wants to utilise Aadhaar, electronic-Know Your Customer (e-KYC) and the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) to build a standard authentication mechanism for access to public Wi-Fi in India. While the aim of Trai is to increase the number of Wi-Fi hotspots in India, proponents of free Internet fear these proposed rules might have a contrary effect.

Hotspot providers will have to incur costs on account of hardware installations for one-time password verification in addition to the costs of sending out the passwords. This might discourage entrepreneurs.

“This system of verification makes it harder for entrepreneurs to set up hotspots and for people to access them. It is impossible for broadband to proliferate in any significant way if Trai insists on applying ineffective and cumbersome regulations on those who wish to set up their own hotspots,” Internet Freedom Foundation said in its comments to Trai’s consultation paper.

The proposals have excluded individuals who do not have an Aadhaar account from accessing public Wi-Fi. “This not only brings concerns of costs and exclusion but also privacy, given the constitutionality of the Aadhaar project, and its government-mandated use, is pending adjudication in the Supreme Court,” the foundation pointed out.

The proposals also come at the cost of anonymity. The foundation, cofounded by the crusaders of last year’s SaveTheInternet campaign, trashed the argument that imposing eKYC norms would help in countering terrorism and other crimes. “This prohibition on anonymous communication is a violation of Indians’ freedom of expression… making a call at a PCO, sending a telegram and posting a letter have always been possible without showing ID — even though criminals and terrorists occasionally abused these services… KYC measures are ineffective in preventing crime and terrorism, as tools like VPNs, TOR, and proxies can easily mask the identity of an Internet user,” it stated.

“The solution proposed by Trai is a classic example of centralism and over-regulation. It turns out that Trai is unclear about the problem to be solved,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society. He added that the new proposals had also failed to address the limitations on foreigners or tourists in India.

Current regulations prevent foreigners without a local mobile number from accessing public Wi-Fi connections. While Trai had identified the problem, it failed to come up with a plausible solution.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-november-20-2016-anita-babu-free-net-advocates-flay-trais-public-wifi-paper