The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 421 to 435.
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India entering the Minority Report age?
http://editors.cis-india.org/minority-report-age
<b>Indian government efforts to block offensive material from the Internet have prompted a storm of online ridicule along with warnings of the risk to India's image as a bastion of free speech.</b>
<p>Communications Minister Kapil Sibal pledged a crackdown on “unacceptable” online content, saying Internet giants such as Google, Yahoo! and Facebook had ignored India's demands to screen images and data before they are uploaded.<br /><br />“We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue,” Sibal told reporters this week, without detailing what steps might be taken.<br /><br />His comments provoked anger and derision among Indian Internet users, while experts raised doubts about the practicalities of enforcing any directive and others questioned the government's motives.<br /><br />Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, said it would be “impractical on the level of scale and on the level of the objective test”.<br /><br />“What's offensive for someone might be completely banal to somebody else,” he told AFP.<br /><br />Any ham-fisted government crackdown would “have a high impact on our credibility as a democracy” and risk alienating India's growing online community, Abraham said.<br /><br />“We should be doing almost everything to promote the take-up of the Internet. It's almost tragic that we're pushing in the opposite direction,” he added.<br /><br />India, the world's largest democracy, has more than 110 million Internet users out of a population of 1.2 billion, with predictions that 600 million people will be online in the next five years.<br /><br />#KapilSibal has this week become one of the most trending topics among Indian users of the micro-blogging site Twitter, with many resorting to humour to mock the minister.<br /><br />Some likened his comments to attempts by Pakistan's telecoms regulator last month to ban text messages containing nearly 1,700 words it deemed “obscene”, which was shelved after outrage from users and campaigners.<br /><br />The satirical Indian web site fakingnews.com compared Sibal's plans to the futuristic Hollywood film “Minority Report”, in which criminals are arrested before committing their crimes.<br /><br />It also carried a spoof news article headlined: “All Facebook posts to have 'Kapil Sibal likes this' by default”.<br /><br />The mainstream media has been generally critical of Sibal as well, warning the government that it could not be seen to over-step the boundaries protecting India's treasured democratic values.<br /><br />“Pre-screening of content amounts to unacceptable censorship,” the Business Standard said in an editorial.<br /><br />There was even a mild expression of concern from Washington where US State Department spokesman Mark Toner was asked about the Indian government's stance.<br /><br />“We are concerned about any effort to curtail freedom of expression on the Internet,” Toner said, while carefully avoiding any direct criticism of Sibal's proposals.<br /><br />Sibal rejected any suggestion of an assault on free speech, saying the government had pleaded for self-regulation by companies such as Google to filter out deeply “insulting” material.<br /><br />He highlighted examples of faked pictures of naked politicians, including Congress Party head Sonia Gandhi, and other images and social network pages that he said could inflame religious tensions.<br /><br />India has in the past moved to block the publication of books and other material seen as disrespectful to Gandhi, or other members of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has dominated India's political life since independence.<br /><br />Vijay Mukhi, a Mumbai-based freelance consultant who writes on Internet security, said Sibal had shown a fundamental lack of understanding about technology and was badly-advised.<br /><br />He also saw in the reaction to the proposals a sign of how the Internet is undermining traditional unquestioning respect and deference towards elders and authority figures.<br /><br />“Most of us in India are very sensitive about what people say. The problem also is that whilst the Internet is there, you have to have a thick hide,” said Mukhi.<br /><br />“Politicians have got to create a second, third or fourth skin to be immune to the criticism that they get.”<br /><br />New Delhi has been accused before of censorship after demanding that BlackBerry makers Research In Motion give Indian security services access to encrypted messaging and email services.<br /><br />Analysts agreed that under certain circumstances, particularly national security, pre- or post-censorship was acceptable, as India was the frequent target of extremists.<br /><br />Abraham, though, said any ban on data and images on decency grounds without a prior complaint was doomed to fail and likely to be contrary to the constitutional right of freedom of expression if challenged in court. - Sapa-AFP</p>
<p>The blog post by Phil Hazlewood was published in ioL scitech. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this. Read the original <a class="external-link" href="http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/technology/internet/india-entering-the-minority-report-age-1.1195853">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/minority-report-age'>http://editors.cis-india.org/minority-report-age</a>
</p>
No publisher
praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-10T06:40:57Z
News Item
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Google V/s Kapil Sibal
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/google-vs-kapil
<b>Mr Kapil Sibal was quoted by the Hindu* today as saying that "he had been left with no choice" because the internet companies "refused to delete incendiary hate-speech."</b>
<p>In response, Google pointed to its Transparency Report which effectively demolishes Mr Sibal's claims, as it points out that out of <strong>358 items</strong> requested to be removed in the period Jan-June 2011, only <strong>8 requests</strong> pertained to hate speech, while there were as many as <strong>255 complaints</strong> against "Government criticism".</p>
<p>Google also told <a class="external-link" href="http://www.medianama.com/2011/12/223-facebook-responds-to-indian-governments-request-to-pre-screen-user-content/#more-44166">Medianama</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“We believe that access to information is the foundation of a free society. Google Search helps spread knowledge, enabling people to find out about almost anything by typing a few words into a computer. And services like YouTube and Google+ help users to express themselves and share different points of view. Where content is illegal or breaks our terms of service we will continue to remove it.”</p>
<p>Mr Sibal's claims fail to stand up to scrutiny and are contradicted by another, yet unpublished, draft report by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) which shows that intermediaries are erring “on the side of caution” and "over-complying after complaints are filed" and that free speech on the Internet in India is already being curtailed in a “chilling” manner.</p>
<p>The <a class="external-link" href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/chilling-impact-of-indias-april-internet-rules/">NYT blog today</a> points to two such examples of over-compliance from this CIS study:</p>
<ol><li>The researcher objected to a comment below an article on a news Web site about the Telangana movement, which aims to create a separate state in Andhra Pradesh. The comment, which was well-written and not obscenity-laced, condemned the violence in the Telangana movement and called its leaders selfish, but supported the cause over all. <br /><br />The researcher wrote the intermediary that the comment was “racially and ethnically objectionable” and “defamatory.” The researcher received no written response, but within 72 hours the intermediary had taken down not just the “offensive” comment, but all 15 comments that were published below the article.</li><li>The researcher sent a take-down notice to another intermediary, defined as a “host and information location tool,” asking that it remove three links provided on its search engine after entering the words “online gambling.” The links, the researcher complained, were “relating or encouraging money-laundering or gambling,” which is illegal under the April rules.<br /><br />The intermediary wrote back to the complainant, saying that the intermediary’s search engine was a “mere conduit” with no control over the information passing through its platform.<br /><br />But it subsequently removed the three links mentioned in the take-down notice, and all other URLs of the three Web sites, including their subdomains.</li></ol>
<p><br />Citing the same as yet unpublished study, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.legallyindia.com/201112072434/Regulatory/kapil-sibal-to-sterilise-net-but-cis-sting-shows-6-out-of-7-websites-already-trigger-happy-to-censor-content-under-chilling-it-act">The Legally Indian</a> blog notes:<br /><br />The only response that was rejected outright was a facetious takedown request to a shopping portal that an ad for baby’s diapers “harmed minors” by potentially causing babies’ rashes.<br /><br />"Of the 7 intermediaries to which takedown notices were sent, 6 intermediaries over-complied with the notices, despite the apparent flaws in them," stated the draft report on the research. "From the responses to the takedown notices, it can be reasonably presumed that not all intermediaries have sufficient legal competence or resources to deliberate on the legality of an expression."<br /><br />"This is just the tip of the iceberg," commented Abraham, adding that he was told by at least one major international intermediary company operating in India that it was “constantly" receiving takedown requests.<br /><br />"Our empirical research demonstrates that intermediaries are unable to make the subjective test that is required of them," he added. "They are highly risk averse and they often choose to completely comply with the person sending a takedown notice."<br /><br />"There is clear anecdotal evidence that […] the recently notified rules have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and expression, and that there is no transparency or accountability."<br /><br />"What we have is a private censorship regime that is alive and kicking in India."</p>
<p>At the CIS blogs, Pranesh Prakash points out how Online Pre-Censorship is Harmful and Impractical, after noting that there can, of course, be reasonable limitations on freedom of speech as provided in Article 19 of the ICCPR and in Article 19(2) of the Constitution:</p>
<p>What he [Kapil Sibal]is proposing is not enforcement of existing rules and regulations, but of a new restriction on online speech. This should have, in a democracy, been put out for wide-ranging public consultations first...<br /><br />The more fundamental disagreement is that over how the question of what should not be published should be decided, and how that decision should be and how that should be carried out, and who can be held liable for unlawful speech... <br /><br />...Newspaper have editors who can take responsibility for content in the newspaper. They can afford to, because the number of articles in a newspaper are limited. Youtube, which has 48 hours of videos uploaded every minutes, cannot. One wag suggested that Mr. Sibal was not suggesting a means of censorship, but of employment generation and social welfare for censors and editors. To try and extend editorial duties to these 'intermediaries' by executive order or through 'forceful suggestions' to these companies cannot happen without amending s.79 of the Information Technology Act which ensures they are not to be held liable for their user's content: the users are.<br /><br />...Internet speech has, to my knowledge, and to date, has never caused a riot in India. It is when it is translated into inflammatory speeches on the ground with megaphones that offensive speech, whether in books or on the Internet, actually become harmful, and those should be targeted instead. And the same laws that apply to offline speech already apply online. If such speech is inciting violence then the police can be contacted and a magistrate can take action. Indeed, Internet companies like Facebook, Google, etc., exercise self-regulation already (excessively and wrongly, I feel sometimes). Any person can flag any content on Youtube or Facebook as violating the site's terms of use. Indeed, even images of breast-feeding mothers have been removed from Facebook on the basis of such complaints. So it is mistaken to think that there is no self-regulation. In two recent cases, the High Courts of Bombay (*Janhit Manch* case) and Madras (*Karthikeyan R.* case) refused to direct the government and intermediaries to police online content, saying that places an excessive burden on freedom of speech...</p>
<p><strong>Pranesh Prakash</strong> goes on to say that the problem stems from the IT Rules that have been in force since April 2011:</p>
<p>While speech that is 'disparaging' (while not being defamatory) is not prohibited by any statute, yet intermediaries are required not to carry 'disparaging' speech, or speech to which the user has no right (how is this to be judged? do you have rights to the last joke that you forwarded?), or speech that promotes gambling (as the governments of Assam does through the PlayWin lottery), and a myriad other kinds of speech that are not prohibited in print or on TV. Who is to judge whether something is 'disparaging'? The intermediary itself, on pain of being liable for prosecution if it is found have made the wrong decision. And any person may send a notice to an intermediary to 'disable' content, which has to be done within 36 hours if the intermediary doesn't want to be held liable. Worst of all, there is no requirement to inform the user whose content it is, nor to inform the public that the content is being removed. It just disappears, into a memory hole. It does not require a paranoid conspiracy theorist to see this as a grave threat to freedom of speech.<br /><br />Many human rights activists and lawyers have made a very strong case that the IT Rules on Intermediary Due Diligence are unconstitutional. Parliament still has an opportunity, till the 2012 budget session of Parliament, to reject these rules. Parliamentarians must act now to uphold their oaths to the Constitution.</p>
<p>This blog post by Sundeep Dougal was published in <a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.outlookindia.com/default.aspx?ddm=10&pid=2665&eid=5">Outlookindia.com </a>on 8 December 2011. Pranesh Prakash's work at CIS has been extensively quoted in this blog post.</p>
<p>* Kapil Sibbal was quoted by the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/article2693232.ece">Hindu in their article</a> dated 7 December 2011.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/google-vs-kapil'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/google-vs-kapil</a>
</p>
No publisher
praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-09T11:12:58Z
News Item
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India bid to censor Internet draws flak
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/india-bid-to-censor-net-draws-flak
<b>Indian government efforts to block offensive material from the Internet have prompted a storm of online ridicule along with warnings of the risk to India's image as a bastion of free speech.</b>
<p>Communications Minister Kapil Sibal pledged a crackdown on "unacceptable" online content, saying Internet giants such as Google, Yahoo! and Facebook had ignored India's demands to screen images and data before they are uploaded.</p>
<p>"We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue," Sibal told reporters this week, without detailing what steps might be taken.</p>
<p>His comments provoked anger and derision among Indian Internet users, while experts raised doubts about the practicalities of enforcing any directive and others questioned the government's motives.</p>
<p>Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, said it would be "impractical on the level of scale and on the level of the objective test".</p>
<p>"What's offensive for someone might be completely banal to somebody else," he told AFP. Any ham-fisted government crackdown would "have a high impact on our credibility as a democracy" and risk alienating India's growing online community, Abraham said.</p>
<p>"We should be doing almost everything to promote the take-up of the Internet. It's almost tragic that we're pushing in the opposite direction," he added.</p>
<p>India, the world's largest democracy, has more than 110 million Internet users out of a population of 1.2 billion, with predictions that 600 million people will be online in the next five years.</p>
<p>#KapilSibal has this week become one of the most trending topics among Indian users of the micro-blogging site Twitter, with many resorting to humour to mock the minister.</p>
<p>Some likened his comments to attempts by Pakistan's telecoms regulator last month to ban text messages containing nearly 1,700 words it deemed "obscene", which was shelved after outrage from users and campaigners.</p>
The satirical Indian web site <a class="external-link" href="http://www.fakingnews.com/">fakingnews.com</a>
<p> compared Sibal's plans to the futuristic Hollywood film "Minority Report", in which criminals are arrested before committing their crimes.
It also carried a spoof news article headlined: "All Facebook posts to have 'Kapil Sibal likes this' by default".</p>
<p>The mainstream media has been generally critical of Sibal as well, warning the government that it could not be seen to over-step the boundaries protecting India's treasured democratic values.</p>
"Pre-screening of content amounts to unacceptable censorship," the Business Standard said in an editorial.
<p>There was even a mild expression of concern from Washington where US State Department spokesman Mark Toner was asked about the Indian government's stance.</p>
<p>"We are concerned about any effort to curtail freedom of expression on the Internet," Toner said, while carefully avoiding any direct criticism of Sibal's proposals.</p>
<p>Sibal rejected any suggestion of an assault on free speech, saying the government had pleaded for self-regulation by companies such as Google to filter out deeply "insulting" material.</p>
<p>He highlighted examples of faked pictures of naked politicians, including Congress Party head Sonia Gandhi, and other images and social network pages that he said could inflame religious tensions.</p>
<p>India has in the past moved to block the publication of books and other material seen as disrespectful to Gandhi, or other members of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has dominated India's political life since independence.</p>
<p>Vijay Mukhi, a Mumbai-based freelance consultant who writes on Internet security, said Sibal had shown a fundamental lack of understanding about technology and was badly-advised.</p>
<p>He also saw in the reaction to the proposals a sign of how the Internet is undermining traditional unquestioning respect and deference towards elders and authority figures.</p>
<p>"Most of us in India are very sensitive about what people say. The problem also is that whilst the Internet is there, you have to have a thick hide," said Mukhi.</p>
<p>"Politicians have got to create a second, third or fourth skin to be immune to the criticism that they get."</p>
<p>New Delhi has been accused before of censorship after demanding that BlackBerry makers Research In Motion give Indian security services access to encrypted messaging and email services.</p>
<p>Analysts agreed that under certain circumstances, particularly national security, pre- or post-censorship was acceptable, as India was the frequent target of extremists.</p>
<p>Abraham, though, said any ban on data and images on decency grounds without a prior complaint was doomed to fail and likely to be contrary to the constitutional right of freedom of expression if challenged in court.</p>
<a class="external-link" href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/copyright?hl=en&ned=in">Copyright © 2011 AFP</a>. All rights reserved.
<p><br />Phil Hazlewood spoke to Sunil Abraham and published this article for AFP. Read the original hosted by Google <a class="external-link" href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gAU54MESgoyp2DSSvrj5GHELOOOg?docId=CNG.33ba93cd99323b241fb70a8bcd7637cf.601">here</a></p>
<p><strong>Related Media Coverage<br /></strong><em>Various newspapers and channels also published this news on their sites:</em></p>
<ul><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.france24.com/en/20111209-india-bid-censor-internet-draws-flak">India bid to censor Internet draws flak</a> [France 24, 9 December 2011]</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2011/December/international_December288.xml&section=international">Indian push to screen Internet content draws flak</a> [Khaleej Times, 9 December 2011]</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-india-censor-internet-flak.html">India bid to censor Internet draws flak</a> [Physorg.com, 9 December 2011]</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2011/12/09/india-censorship-bid-gets-flak">India censorship bid gets flak</a> [TimesLive, 9 December 2011]</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/computer/270060/india-bid-to-censor-internet-draws-flak">India bid to censor Internet draws flak</a> [Bangkok Post, 9 December 2011]</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/12298715/india-bid-to-censor-internet-draws-flak/">India bid to censor Internet draws flak</a> [Yahoo News, 9 December 2011]</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://news.ph.msn.com/sci-tech/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5638072">India bid to censor Internet draws flak</a> [MSN News, 9 December 2011]</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.emirates247.com/news/world/indian-push-to-screen-internet-content-draws-flak-2011-12-09-1.431966">Indian push to screen Internet content draws flak</a> [Emirates 24/7, 9 December 2011]</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.businesslive.co.za/world/int_generalnews/2011/12/09/indian-push-to-screen-internet-content-draws-flak">Indian push to screen internet content draws flak</a> [Business Live, 9 December 2011]</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/international/indian-push-to-screen-internet-content-draws-flak/483663">Indian Push to Screen Internet Content Draws Flak</a> [Jakarta Globe, 9 December 2011]<br /></li></ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/india-bid-to-censor-net-draws-flak'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/india-bid-to-censor-net-draws-flak</a>
</p>
No publisher
praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-09T10:36:30Z
News Item
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Los internautas indios se oponen a la censura a través de la Red
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/internautas-indios-se-oponen
<b>La idea del Gobierno indio de censurar los contenidos de internet ha chocado con el rechazo de la empresas del sector y de los internautas, que están usando las redes sociales para ridiculizar al ministro</b>
<p>La idea del Gobierno de la India de censurar los contenidos de internet ha chocado con el rechazo de la empresas del sector y, sobre todo, de los internautas, que están usando las redes sociales para ridiculizar al ministro del ramo.</p>
<p>Esta semana, el titular de Comunicaciones, Kapil Sibal, reveló que ha contactado con los gestores de la más importantes redes sociales y buscadores para plantear la eliminación de contenidos "objetables", lo cual ha sublevado a los internautas.</p>
<p>Los foros de la red hierven de opiniones en contra de la simple posibilidad de que se censure internet y en el Twitter indio las cadenas de "tuiteos" más seguidas llevan por título el nombre del ministro; la más exitosa es de hecho "IdiotKapilSibal".</p>
<p>Los medios locales afirman que la iniciativa del Ejecutivo indio surgió a raíz de la publicación en algunos portales de fotos deformadas del primer ministro, Manmohan Singh, y de la líder del gobernante Partido del Congreso, Sonia Gandhi.</p>
<p>Esto último ha motivado que muchos de los mensajes que corren por la red bromeen con que la nueva normativa de control debería llamarse SONIA, acrónimo de Social Networking Inspection Act (Norma de inspección de las redes sociales).</p>
<p>La idea del ministro Kapil también ha topado con la más moderada oposición de portales como Facebook o Google, que se han negado a aplicar nuevos sistemas de control más allá de los previstos por las mismas páginas de internet.</p>
<p>Aunque dijeron "reconocer el interés del Gobierno en minimizar el contenido abusivo" en la red, los responsables de Facebook en India recalcaron en un comunicado que su portal ya tiene mecanismos para eliminar textos o imágenes contrarias a su propia normativa interna.</p>
<p>Según datos de Facebook, la India es, con 34 millones, el tercer país del mundo con más usuarios de esta red social, solo por detrás de Estados Unidos e Indonesia.</p>
<p>Google India recalcó en un comunicado, citado por la agencia local IANS, que "hay que diferenciar lo que es controvertido de lo que es ilegal" y también se remitió a los mecanismos de control de contenidos del propio buscador.</p>
<p>La oposición de los operadores y los internautas no ha hecho desistir, de momento, al ministro, que advirtió en una rueda de prensa convocada por sorpresa de que el Gobierno seguirá adelante con la cooperación de las empresas o sin ella.</p>
<p>"Les pediremos información (a los portales web), déjennos tiempo para gestionarlo. Pero una cosa es segura: no permitiremos ese tipo de contenido objetable", dijo Kapil a los medios. El plan del ministro choca, sin embargo, con problemas de diversa índole.</p>
<p>"En el control de internet hay una dificultad técnica, ya que es imposible que una máquina discrimine lo que es 'objetable' de lo que no, por lo se producen multitud de falsos positivos", dijo el responsable de una organización india de estudios sobre la red.</p>
<p>Pero el director del Centro Internet y Sociedad, Sunil Abraham, cree que el problema es más ético que tecnológico, ya que "solo un juez está facultado para eliminar contenidos y debe haber evidencia del daño cometido, algo casi imposible cuando hay censura previa".</p>
<p>This article appeared in the Spanish newspaper Diario de Navarra on 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this. Read the original <a class="external-link" href="http://www.diariodenavarra.es/noticias/mas_actualidad/sociedad/los_internautas_indios_oponen_censura_traves_red_57115_1035.html">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/internautas-indios-se-oponen'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/internautas-indios-se-oponen</a>
</p>
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praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-09T00:25:11Z
News Item
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Social media sites refuse Indian censorship request
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/social-media-sites-refuse-indian-censorship
<b>The Indian government's proposal to crack down on offensive internet content has sparked anger among the population.</b>
<p>Telecommunications minister Kapil Sibal asked providers of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to screen out content that might be considered defamatory to religious and political leaders. But the move has been decried as a gag on freedom of speech.</p>
<p><strong>Presenter</strong>: Kanaha Sabapathy<br /><strong>Speakers</strong>: Kapil Sibal, <em>India's Telecommunications Minister</em>; Milind Deora, <em>Minister of State for Communications and IT</em>; Varun Gandhi, <em>Member of Parliament for the Opposition, BJP</em>; Sunil Abraham, <em>Executive Director of the policy research group, the Centre for Internet and Society <br /></em></p>
<p><img alt="" /> Listen to the audio <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/indian-censorship.asx" class="internal-link" title="Social media sites refuse Indian censorship request">here </a>(Microsoft ASF video, 591 bytes)</p>
<p> Sunil Abraham spoke to Radio Australia. Follow the original broadcast by ABC Australia Radio <a class="external-link" href="http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/201112/s3386803.htm">here</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/social-media-sites-refuse-indian-censorship'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/social-media-sites-refuse-indian-censorship</a>
</p>
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praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-08T08:26:45Z
News Item
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Press Coverage of Online Censorship Row
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/press-coverage-online-censorship
<b>We are maintaining a rolling blog with press references to the row created by the proposal by the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology to pre-screen user-generated Internet content.</b>
<h2>Monday, December 5, 2011</h2>
<p><a href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/india-asks-google-facebook-others-to-screen-user-content/?pagemode=print">India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen Content</a> | Heather Timmons (New York Times, India Ink)</p>
<h2>Tuesday, December 6, 2011</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2690084.ece">Sibal warns social websites over objectionable content</a> | Sandeep Joshi (The Hindu)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2691781.ece">Hate speech must be blocked, says Sibal</a> | Praveen Swami & Sujay Mehdudia (The Hindu)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2692821.ece">Won't remove material just because it's controversial: Google</a> | (Press Trust of India)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/any-normal-human-being-would-be-offended/">Any Normal Human Being Would Be Offended </a>| Heather Timmons (New York Times, India Ink)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2692047.ece">After Sibal, Omar too feels some online content inflammatory </a>| (Press Trust of India)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/us-india-internet-idUSTRE7B50CV20111206">Online uproar as India seeks social media screening</a> | Devidutta Tripathy and Anurag Kotoky (Reuters)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-12-06/news/30481824_1_kapil-sibal-objectionable-content-twitter">Kapil Sibal for content screening: Facebook, Twitter full of posts against censorship</a> | (IANS)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/245548/india_may_overstep_its_own_laws_in_demanding_content_filtering.html">India May Overstep Its Own Laws in Demanding Content Filtering</a> | John Ribeiro (IDG)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-06/internet/30481147_1_shashi-tharoor-objectionable-content-bjp-mp">Kapil Sibal warns websites: Mixed response from MPs</a> | (Press Trust of India)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJp8HOPzc7k">Websites must clean up content, says Sibal </a>| (NewsX)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/Kapil-Sibal-warns-websites-Google-says-wont-remove-material-just-because-its-controversial/articleshow/11008985.cms">Kapil Sibal warns websites; Google says won't remove material just because it's controversial </a>| Press Trust of India</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2011/12/06155955/Views--Censorship-by-any-othe.html?h=A1">Censorship By Any Other Name...</a> | Yamini Lohia (Mint)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-06/internet/30481193_1_facebook-and-google-facebook-users-facebook-page">Kapil Sibal: We have to take care of sensibility of our people</a> | Associated Press</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-06/india/30481473_1_digvijaya-singh-websites-content">Kapil Sibal gets backing of Digvijaya Singh over social media screening</a> | Press Trust of India</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/newdelhi/Sibal-gets-what-he-set-out-to-censor/Article1-778388.aspx">Sibal Gets What He Set Out To Censor </a>| (Hindustan Times, Agencies)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://newstonight.net/content/objectionable-matter-will-be-removed-censorship-not-picture-yet-kapil-sibal">Objectionable Matter Will Be Removed, Censorship Not in Picture Yet: Kapil Sibal</a> | Amar Kapadia (News Tonight)</p>
<h2>Wednesday, December 7, 2011</h2>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/kapil-sibal-for-monitoring-offensive-content-on-internet/1/163107.html">Kapil Sibal Doesn't Understand the Internet</a> | Shivam Vij (India Today)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/chilling-impact-of-indias-april-internet-rules/">'Chilling' Impact of India's April Internet Rules</a> | Heather Timmons (New York Times, India Ink)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/screening-not-censorship-says-sibal/457797/">Screening, not censorship, says Sibal</a> | (Business Standard)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2011/12/07202955/Chandni-Chowk-to-China.html">Chandni Chowk to China</a> | Salil Tripathi (Mint)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2011/12/07131308/Views--Kapil-Sibal-vs-the-int.html">Kapil Sibal vs the internet</a> | Sandipan Deb (Mint)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/No-need-for-censorship-of-internet-Cyber-law-experts/articleshow/11014990.cms">No Need for Censorship of the Internet: Cyber Law Experts</a> | (Times News Network)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2695832.ece">Protest with flowers for Sibal</a> | (The Hindu)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_kapil-sibal-cannot-screen-this-report_1622435">Kapil Sibal cannot screen this report</a> | Team DNA, Blessy Chettiar & Renuka Rao (Daily News and Analysis)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Kapil-Sibal-warns-websites-but-experts-say-prescreening-of-user-content-not-practical/articleshow/11019481.cms">Kapil Sibal warns websites, but experts say prescreening of user content not practical </a>| (Reuters)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://newstonight.net/content/sibal-s-remarks-brought-disgust">Sibal's Remarks Brought Disgust</a> | Hitesh Mehta (News Tonight)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2695884.ece">BJP backs mechanism to curb objectionable content on websites</a> | (The Hindu)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/move-to-regulate-networking-sites-should-be-discussed-in-parliament-bjp/articleshow/11023284.cms">Move to regulate networking sites should be discussed in Parliament: BJP</a> | (Press Trust of India)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.dailypioneer.com/pioneer-news/top-story/26016-sibal-under-attack-in-cyberspace.html">Sibal under attack in cyberspace</a> | (Press Trust of India)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/Google-Govt-wanted-358-items-removed/articleshow/11021470.cms">Kapil Sibal's web censorship: Indian govt wanted 358 items removed, says Google</a> | (Press Trust of India)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Kapil-Sibal-gets-BJP-support-but-with-rider/articleshow/11020128.cms">Kapil Sibal gets BJP support but with rider</a> | (Indo-Asian News Service)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Sibal-s-way-of-regulating-web-not-okay-says-BJP/Article1-779221.aspx">Sibal's way of regulating web not okay, says BJP</a> | (Indo-Asian News Service)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/just-faith/?p=1034">Censorship in Blasphemy's Clothings</a> | Gautam Chikermane (Hindustan Times, Just Faith)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222500/India_wants_Google_Facebook_to_screen_content">India wants Google, Facebook to screen content</a> | Sharon Gaudin (Computer World)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.zdnetasia.com/blogs/should-we-be-taming-social-media-62303153.htm">Should we be taming social media?</a> | Swati Prasad (ZDNet, Inside India)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_kapil-sibal-gets-lampooned-for-views-on-web-control_1622491">Kapil Sibal gets lampooned for views on Web control</a> | (Daily News and Analysis)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/people/We-dont-need-no-limitation/articleshow/11020244.cms">'We don't need no limitation'</a> | Asha Prakash (Times of India)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/Five-reasons-why-India-cant-censor-the-internet/articleshow/11018172.cms">Five reasons why India can't censor the internet</a> | Prasanto K. Roy (Indo-Asian News Service)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/we-are-the-web/884753/">We Are the Web</a> | (Indian Express)</p>
<h2>Thursday, December 8, 2011</h2>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Kapil-Sibal-under-attack-in-cyberspace/articleshow/11029319.cms">Kapil Sibal under attack in cyberspace</a>, (Press Trust of India)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/speak-up-for-freedom/885132/">Speak Up for Freedom </a>| Pranesh Prakash (Indian Express)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/newswallah-censorship/">Newswallah: Censorship</a> | Neha Thirani (New York Times, India Ink)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/no-question-of-censoring-internet-says-sachin-pilot-156281">No Question of Censoring the Internet, Says Sachin Pilot </a>| (NDTV)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/12/web-censorship-india">Mind Your Netiquette, or We'll Mind it for You</a> | A.A.K. (The Economist)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Take-Parliaments-view-to-regulate-social-networking-sites-BJP-tells-govt/articleshow/11025858.cms">Take Parliament's view to regulate social networking sites, BJP tells govt</a> | (Times News Network)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2696027.ece">India wanted 358 items removed</a> | Priscilla Jebaraj (The Hindu)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.barandbench.com/brief/2/1891/indian-government-v-social-networking-sites-expert-views">Indian Government v Social Networking sites: Expert Views</a> | (Bar & Bench News Network)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://business-standard.com/india/news/can-government-muzzle-websites/457909/">Can Government Muzzle Websites?</a> | Priyanka Joshi & Piyali Mandal (Business Standard)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international-business/us-concerned-over-internet-curbs-sidesteps-india-move/articleshow/11029532.cms">US concerned over internet curbs, sidesteps India move</a> | (Indo-Asian News Service)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-why-internet-companies-are-upset-with-kapil-sibal/20111208.htm">Why Internet Companies Are Upset with Kapil Sibal</a> | (Rediff)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Why_Censor_Facebook_When_You_Dont_Censor_Sunny_Leone-nid-99931-cid-1.html">Why Censor Facebook When You Don't Censor Sunny Leone?</a> | (Indo-Asian News Service)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2697432.ece">Online content issue: Talks with India on, says U.S.</a> | (Press Trust of India)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h0BfQkpJMZISTc3fjs3VgH7orciw?docId=CNG.8dc3992299cb598cecde0fffb1db8bcd.1c1">US calls for Internet freedom amid India plan</a> | Agence France-Presse</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/press-coverage-online-censorship'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/press-coverage-online-censorship</a>
</p>
No publisher
pranesh
IT Act
Links
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
Facebook
Intermediary Liability
Censorship
2011-12-08T11:31:30Z
Blog Entry
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Is the govt bid to regulate content on the Internet a good thing?
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/ibn-live-chat-with-pranesh
<b>The recent move by Union Minister Kapil Sibal to engage leading Internet platform providers like Google, Facebook, etc in regulating content has seen netizens react in different manners. The question of freedom of expression vis-a-vis objectionable content has come to the fore. Pranesh Prakash who deals with such issues on a regular basis at the Centre for Internet and Society was answering questions (more like comments) live on CNN-IBN's chat feature on December 7, 2011. </b>
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<td>Q: OK... then how about this... People report abuse against a page...and after some hits that report will go to the governmental organization, and they will decide on what action to take... this may include hiring of some IT services company to do that and gives more employment to people too. Anyways thanks for replying to my questions.<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Tilak Kamath<br /><br />
<div align="left">A: How about just approaching courts, who are in a far better position to judge what is legal and what is illegal under Indian law than any IT services company or government organization.</div>
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<td>Q: Suppose a group of rabble rousers does indeed use a forum and become violent, (the group being identifiable) would the state have the right to ask the forum to be discontinued?<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Zeus<br />
<div align="left"><br />A: Of course (if what you meant is 'the right to ask the forum to remove the violence-inciting content'). Indeed, this is how ultra-left wing and ultra-right wing publications that advocate violence (which is an imminent threat) are proscribed in India. And the same laws already apply for online fora. But just as you wouldn't ban a newspaper like DNA for carrying an offensive article (such as the anti-Muslim screed written by Subramanian Swamy a few months back), and just as the postal service wouldn't be discontinued for carrying Maoist letters, a forum shouldn't be banned for offensive content. There is no need for a new 'self-regulation code', since the 'report abuse' links found on many of these sites are exactly that: self-regulation.</div>
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<td>Q: Article 19(2) of our constitution places arbitrary and subjective restrictions on free speech - public order, decency, morality are all subjective, according to the whims and fancies of those who are in control. Aren't you concerned this is going down the exact path (ignoring that this is impractical to begin with)?<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Karunakaran<br /><br /></div>
A: No, because there is a rich jurisprudence laid down by the Supreme Court of what is and what isn't a "reasonable restriction". While I do believe that our Constitution does go beyond what the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (to which India is a signatory) allows for, Article 19(2)'s interpretation by the Supreme Court and the High Courts have been very progressive for the most part. <br /></td>
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<td>Q: The government has a mandate to govern and keep the society in harmony and take care of law & order... If no check on the expressions of netizens the chances of a spark generating debate can escalate to violence given the extremism we see today. The media in print as well as electronic we know & see does it's CENSORING, calling it as editing and publishing only what it likes and wants.This style is for all including CNN-IBN.The difference is in media, the EDITOR gets responsible in case of offensive or blashphemous material gets published. Social network the responsibility seems missing. Freedom always needs to be enjoyed with discipline. How do you the minority indisciplined netizens, who are there and no denying on that ?<br /><br />
<div align="right">Asked by: sundar1950in</div>
<br />A: I believe that killing speech is not the right way to prevent violence. Indeed, a newspaper editor in the Maldives recently noted that they have had less violence committed against the newspaper office ever since they allowed for online comments. Speech often allows people to vent out violence instead of acting it out. Violence should be curbed by reining in those who're committing it, and those who're inciting it on the ground. At any rate, the laws that apply to inciting violence in print apply to the Web also, and no new rules need to be drafted. <br /></td>
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<td>Q: Thanks for the information on the report abuse button. but can't we have a Governmental agency regulating websites like FB or Google... they can't say no, cos India is a Huge market for such companies.. and why don't we find many ultra offensive posts about the U.S. or other countries, as we find for Indians..<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Tilak Kamath</div>
<br />A: That would be a very bad idea. Governments don't have a regulatory agency to dictate what letters post-offices shouldn't carry, nor what articles newspapers shouldn't publish. They should definitely not have a regulatory agency dictate what status updates Facebook or Google+ should and shouldn't carry. You don't find ultra-offensive posts about the U.S. because you aren't looking around. They're *everywhere*, even more so than those that bad-mouth India. Yet, such offensive speech is the price we have to pay (gladly, I should add) for democracy and the freedom of speech.<br /></td>
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<td>Q: The idea to ban any post on something that would lead to communal strike is fine however, I feel this is not the intention. The intention is clearly political and due to the Anna movement becoming popular thanks to the posts on the internet as also certain remarks on the Gandhi family in particular and Congress leaders specifically has led to this decision. Kapil Sibal is a smart alec and he knows that this can be used against any adverse comments against them.<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Arun</div>
<br />A: I am less suspicious of Mr. Sibal. I believe, especially after speaking with some senior lawyer friends of his, that he genuinely believes what he is doing to be required and legal and constitutional, and not for the appeasement of one or two Congress leaders. That, however, does not make his suggested solution correct. Multiple High Courts' decisions have held otherwise, and the Supreme Court's decision in <em>Ajay Goswami v. Union of India</em> also provides them support. <br /></td>
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<td>Q: One best possible thing is to advertise the Report Abuse button on the Internet, don't you think so? again there should be proper authentication to do so to avoid miscreants blocking some good pages unnecessarily.<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Tilak Kamath</div>
<br />A: I believe that the "Report Abuse" option available on most large social media and social network websites is useful, but it is also potentially dangerous since it allows a private party (such as Facebook or Google), rather than a court, to dictate what content is and isn't acceptable, to the possible detriment of larger society.<br /></td>
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<td>Q: Good evening sir, my question is that it is legal to pre-screen the private data of users by sites and to interfere between their privacy.<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Shrey Goswami<br /><br /></div>
A: Whether this proposal by Shri Sibal necessarily involves an invasion of privacy is an open question, since the details of the proposal as as yet not fully sketched out. On Google Plus and Facebook, one can restrictedly share information. Will such restricted sharing also have to be pre-screened, or only information that is going to be available to all members of the public? The proposal still consists only of press articles and a press conference held by the Minister. Even assuming it only require pre-screening of information that is going to be publicly accessible, it imposes too high a burden on intermediaries, and is impractical. And, as you might be aware, only very limited pre-censorship is allowed in India, and such a general requirement of pre-censorship does not seem to be constitutional, in my opinion.<br /></td>
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<td>Q: Yes, we were browsing FB yesterday and some content in there, could not be opened in front of my children. So Content is not always good, and there must be some kind of screening. Again, the current trend in India, to think that whatever the government does is not at all a good one. Governing must be left to government and not to news channels/civil society, etc. This looks dangerous, and sad no one is realising this.<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Narayanan S</div>
<br />A: Perhaps I should allow former Supreme Court Justice Hidyatullah's words speak for themselves: "Our standards must be so framed that we are not reduced to a level where the protection of the least capable and the most depraved amongst us determines what the morally healthy cannot view or read." - Justice Hidyatullah in <em>K.A. Abbas v. Union of India</em>. In the Janhit Manch case, the Bombay High Court held: "By the present petition what the petition seeks is that this court which is a protector of free speech to the citizens of this country, should interfere and direct the respondents to make a coordinated and sustained effort to close down the websites as aforestated. Once Parliament in its wisdom has enacted a law and has provided for the punishment for breach of that law any citizen of this country including the Petitioner who is aggrieved against any action on the part of any other person which may amount to an offence has a right to approach the appropriate forum and lodge a complaint upon which the action can be taken if an offence is disclosed. Court in such matters, the guardians of the freedom of speech, and more so a constitutional court should not embark on an exercise to direct State Authorities to monitor websites. If such an exercise is done, then a party aggrieved, depending on the sensibilities of persons whose view may differ on what is morally degrading or prurient will be sitting in judgment, even before the aggrieved person can lead his evidence and a competent court decides the issue. The Legislature having enacted the law a person aggrieved may file a complaint." <br /></td>
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<td>Q: Kapil Sibal has not been able to give conviction to objectionable content as social unrest can't take place through web and it needs well oiled machinery and as far as using offensive language against politicians is concerned it won't be curtailed through web and it will require better self regulation among politicians rather than being irresponsible<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Rij</div>
A: I agree completely.<br /></td>
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<td>Q: Do you feel that Government (Congress in particular ) is trying to impose restrictions on social media to stifle the peoples anger against the Government and its leaders due to various scams and corruption?<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Santosh</div>
<br />A: No. I am taking Mr. Sibal's words at face value, that what they are trying to prevent is hate speech, inciting speech. Still, the means of doing so are undemocratic, ignorant of how the Internet functions, and liable to have very harmful consequences on our polity. <br /></td>
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<td>Q: Are our laws going to be like those in gulf countries with respect to censorship? In the name of communal messages, is there a motive to censor something else?<br />
<div align="right">Asked by: Gaurav</div>
<br />A: It doesn't matter what the 'ulterior motive' is, and I'm not sure there is one. The touchstone should should be that of our Constitution and Article 19(1)(a), which guarantees freedom of speech and expression with the Article 19(2) laying down the reasons for which reasonable restrictions can be laid down. And in many ways our laws are worse than those in Saudi Arabia. There at least when a website is blocked or content removed the public is notified when they try and access the content. In India, there is no such notification. <br /></td>
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<p>Q: Is this being done as the politicians on the whole and congressmen
in particular are not upon notwithstanding how true the comment is. Is
it particular so when they are charry if any adverse comment is made on
the Gandhis. All these politicians who have opted for public life need
to be open for adverse comments as they are in the public limelight and
or it is their privilege.</p>
<div align="right">Asked by: Arun</div>
<p><br />
A: The examples being cited by Kapil Sibal are of harming religious
sentiments and inciting hatred. Be that as it may, even if the content
deserves to be removed—and I can't comment until I see the content he
finds offensive—doing so by mandating pre-censorship by intermediaries
with liability fixed on them otherwise is a wrong way of going about it.</p>
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<p>* The chat is over. Read the original published in IBN Live Chat <a class="external-link" href="http://ibnlive.in.com/chat/pranesh-prakash/is-the-govt-bid-to-regulate-content-on-the-internet-a-good-thing/758.html#">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/ibn-live-chat-with-pranesh'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/ibn-live-chat-with-pranesh</a>
</p>
No publisher
praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-08T07:12:24Z
News Item
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‘Chilling’ Impact of India’s April Internet Rules
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/chilling-impact-of-indias-april-internet-rules
<b>Kapil Sibal’s demand that Internet companies self-censor users’ content is just the latest move by the Indian government to restrict information on Facebook and other social media Web sites. This article by Heather Simmons was published in the New York Times on December 7, 2011.</b>
<p>The most stringent government push came in April, when the “<a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/RNUS_CyberLaw_15411.pdf">Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011</a>” were introduced.</p>
<p>The rules require “intermediaries,” companies like Facebook, Google and Yahoo that provide the platform for users to comment and create their own content, to respond quickly if individuals complain that content is “disparaging” or “harassing,” among other complaints. If the complainant’s claim is valid, these companies must take down the offensive information within 36 hours.<br /><br />So, what impact have these rules had so far?<br /><br />A yet-to-be-published study by the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore concludes that free speech on the Internet in India is already being curtailed in a “chilling” manner.<br /><br />Rather than carefully studying take-down notices, intermediaries are erring “on the side of caution,” the report says, and over-complying after complaints are filed, perhaps because they don’t have the legal or administrative manpower to examine every complaint.<br /><br />In the study, a researcher working for C.I.S. sent notices to intermediaries in seven different situations, saying he found specific user-generated material offensive. In six of the seven, these companies took down the “offensive” material, and often removed more than was asked for. (In the seventh case, the researcher asked a shopping portal to remove information on one brand of diapers, saying they caused diaper rash and were therefore harmful to minors. The shopping site rejected the request, calling it frivolous.)<br /><br />The study does not name the specific intermediaries involved, but they are understood to be the big social media and Internet companies that dominate the industry.<br /><br />Two examples:</p>
<ol><li>The researcher objected to a comment below an article on a news Web site about the Telangana movement, which aims to create a separate state in Andhra Pradesh. The comment, which was well-written and not obscenity-laced, condemned the violence in the Telangana movement and called its leaders selfish, but supported the cause over all. The researcher wrote the intermediary that the comment was “racially and ethnically objectionable” and “defamatory.”<br /><br />The researcher received no written response, but within 72 hours the intermediary had taken down not just the “offensive” comment, but all 15 comments that were published below the article.<br /><br /></li><li>The researcher sent a take-down notice to another intermediary, defined as a “host and information location tool,” asking that it remove three links provided on its search engine after entering the words “online gambling.” The links, the researcher complained, were “relating or encouraging money-laundering or gambling,” which is illegal under the April rules.<br /></li></ol>
<p><br />The intermediary wrote back to the complainant, saying that the intermediary’s search engine was a “mere conduit” with no control over the information passing through its platform.<br /><br />But it subsequently removed the three links mentioned in the take-down notice, and all other URLs of the three Web sites, including their subdomains.<br /><br />The rules seem to encourage “privately administered injunctions to censor and chill free expression,” C.I.S. says. A third party whose information has been removed is not informed about the take-down request or given a chance to defend itself.<br /><br />The study’s results show the “rules are procedurally flawed as they ignore all elements of natural justice,” C.I.S. concludes.</p>
<p> <a class="external-link" href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/chilling-impact-of-indias-april-internet-rules/#more-10881">The original was published in the New York Times</a><a class="external-link" href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/chilling-impact-of-indias-april-internet-rules/#more-10881"></a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/chilling-impact-of-indias-april-internet-rules'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/chilling-impact-of-indias-april-internet-rules</a>
</p>
No publisher
praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2012-01-27T04:32:51Z
News Item
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Online Pre-Censorship is Harmful and Impractical
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/online-pre-censorship-harmful-impractical
<b>The Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal wants Internet intermediaries to pre-censor content uploaded by their users. Pranesh Prakash takes issue with this and explains why this is a problem, even if the government's heart is in the right place. Further, he points out that now is the time to take action on the draconian IT Rules which are before the Parliament.</b>
<p>Mr. Sibal is a knowledgeable lawyer, and according to a senior lawyer friend of his with whom I spoke yesterday, greatly committed to ideals of freedom of speech. He would not lightly propose regulations that contravene Article 19(1)(a) [freedom of speech and expression] of our Constitution. Yet his recent proposals regarding controlling online speech seem unreasonable. My conclusion is that the minister has not properly grasped the way the Web works, is frustrated because of the arrogance of companies like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. And while he has his heart in the right place, his lack of knowledge of the Internet is leading him astray. The more important concern is the<a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/RNUS_CyberLaw_15411.pdf"> IT Rules</a> that have been in force since April 2011.</p>
<h3>Background <br /></h3>
<p>The New York Times scooped a story on Monday revealing that Mr. Sibal and the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/">MCIT</a> had been <a class="external-link" href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/india-asks-google-facebook-others-to-screen-user-content/?scp=2&sq=kapil%20sibal&st=cse">in touch with Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft</a>, asking them to set up a system whereby they would manually filter user-generated content before it is published, to ensure that objectionable speech does not get published. Specifically, he mentioned content that hurt people's religious sentiments and content that Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor described as <a class="external-link" href="http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/i-am-against-web-censorship-shashi-tharoor_745587.html">'vile' and capable of inciting riots as being problems</a>. Lastly, Mr. Sibal defended this as not being "censorship" by the government, but "supervision" of user-generated content by the companies themselves.</p>
<h3>Concerns <br /></h3>
<p>One need not give lectures on the benefits of free speech, and Mr. Sibal is clear that he does not wish to impinge upon it. So one need not point out that freedom of speech means nothing if not the freedom to offend (as long as no harm is caused). There can, of course, be reasonable limitations on freedom of speech as provided in Article 19 of the <a class="external-link" href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm">ICCPR</a> and in Article 19(2) of our Constitution. My problem lies elsewhere.</p>
<h3>Secrecy <br /></h3>
<p>It is unfortunate that the New York Times has to be given credit for Mr. Sibal addressing a press conference on this issue (and he admitted as much). What he is proposing is not enforcement of existing rules and regulations, but of a new restriction on online speech. This should have, in a democracy, been put out for wide-ranging public consultations first.</p>
<h3>Making intermediaries responsible <br /></h3>
<p>The more fundamental disagreement is that over how the question of what should not be published should be decided, and how that decision should be and how that should be carried out, and who can be held liable for unlawful speech. I believe that "to make the intermediary liable for the user violating that code would, I think, not serve the larger interests of the market." Mr. Sibal said that in May this year <a class="external-link" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355223687825048.html">in an interview with the Wall Street Journal</a>. The intermediaries (that is, all persons and companies who transmit or host content on behalf of a third party), are but messengers just like a post office and do not exercise editorial control, unlike a newspaper. (By all means prosecute Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft whenever they have created unlawful content, have exercised editorial control over unlawful content, have incited and encouraged unlawful activities, or know after a court order or the like that they are hosting illegal content and still do not remove it.)
Newspapers have editors who can take responsibility for content published in the newspaper. They can afford to, because the number of articles in a newspaper is limited. YouTube, which has 48 hours of videos uploaded every minutes, cannot. One wag suggested that Mr. Sibal was not suggesting a means of censorship, but of employment generation and social welfare for censors and editors. To try and extend editorial duties to these 'intermediaries' by executive order or through 'forceful suggestions' to these companies cannot happen without amending s.79 of the Information Technology Act which ensures they are not to be held liable for their user's content: the users are.
Internet speech has, to my knowledge, and to date, has never caused a riot in India. It is when it is translated into inflammatory speeches on the ground with megaphones that offensive speech, whether in books or on the Internet, actually become harmful, and those should be targeted instead. And the same laws that apply to offline speech already apply online. If such speech is inciting violence then the police can be contacted and a magistrate can take action. Indeed, Internet companies like Facebook, Google, etc., exercise self-regulation already (excessively and wrongly, I feel sometimes). Any person can flag any content on YouTube or Facebook as violating the site's terms of use. Indeed, even images of breast-feeding mothers have been removed from Facebook on the basis of such complaints. So it is mistaken to think that there is no self-regulation. In two recent cases, the High Courts of Bombay (<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/janhit-manch-v-union-of-india" class="internal-link" title="Janhit Manch & Ors. v. The Union of India"><em>Janhit Manch v. Union of India</em></a>) and Madras (<em>R. Karthikeyan v. Union of India</em>) refused to direct the government and intermediaries to police online content, saying that places an excessive burden on freedom of speech.</p>
<h3>IT Rules, 2011 <br /></h3>
<p>In this regard, the IT Rules published in April 2011 are great offenders. While speech that is 'disparaging' (while not being defamatory) is not prohibited by any statute, yet intermediaries are required not to carry 'disparaging' speech, or speech to which the user has no right (how is this to be judged? do you have rights to the last joke that you forwarded?), or speech that promotes gambling (as the government of Sikkim does through the PlayWin lottery), and a myriad other kinds of speech that are not prohibited in print or on TV. Who is to judge whether something is 'disparaging'? The intermediary itself, on pain of being liable for prosecution if it is found have made the wrong decision. And any person may send a notice to an intermediary to 'disable' content, which has to be done within 36 hours if the intermediary doesn't want to be held liable. Worst of all, there is no requirement to inform the user whose content it is, nor to inform the public that the content is being removed. It just disappears, into a memory hole. It does not require a paranoid conspiracy theorist to see this as a grave threat to freedom of speech.
Many human rights activists and lawyers have made a very strong case that the IT Rules on Intermediary Due Diligence are unconstitutional. Parliament still has an opportunity to reject these rules until the end of the 2012 budget session. Parliamentarians must act now to uphold their oaths to the Constitution.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/online-pre-censorship-harmful-impractical'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/online-pre-censorship-harmful-impractical</a>
</p>
No publisher
pranesh
IT Act
Obscenity
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Public Accountability
YouTube
Social media
Internet Governance
Featured
Intermediary Liability
Censorship
Social Networking
2011-12-12T17:00:50Z
Blog Entry
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Kapil Sibal to sterilise Net but undercover sting shows 6 of 7 websites already trigger-happy to censor under ‘chilling’ IT Act
http://editors.cis-india.org/chilling-it-act
<b>The Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has carried out an undercover investigation into the "chilling effects" of new information technology laws on freedom of expression online, with six out of seven major websites removing innocent content online without proper investigation, creating a "private censorship regime". </b>
<p>CIS’ still unpublished draft report, a copy of which Legally India has seen, was prepared before yesterday’s controversial announcement by India’s minister of communications and IT Kapil Sibal, who said that he was talking to major intermediaries on the web, such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.legallyindia.com/201112072434/Regulatory/www.livemint.com/2011/12/06130244/Govt-wants-to-scrub-the-Intern.html">to actively prevent “blasphemous” content from being posted online</a> by users. </p>
<p>Earlier this year a CIS researcher and lawyer had sent "fraudulent" takedown letters to seven internet companies making claims without providing any evidence that certain third-party content violated provisions under the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, explained Sunil Abraham, executive director of CIS.</p>
<p>The rules, which were came into force in April 2011, aimed to limit the liability of web sites acting as intermediary publishers of information, if they comply to a takedown mechanism, but CIS said in its report that the rules were “procedurally flawed” because they ignored all principles of “natural justice”.</p>
<p>The researchers sent a notice to two Indian news website claiming without evidence that a reader’s comment related to the Telengana movement under a news article was “disparaging”, “racially and ethnically objectionable”, “hateful” and “defamatory”. One website removed two comments, while the other went even beyond the researcher’s request to remove only one comment and within 72 hours removed all 15 comments left by readers on the article.</p>
<p>The researchers also successfully convinced other websites, including a search engine, to remove content and links that they claimed encouraged money laundering or gambling,<br /><br />The only response that was rejected outright was a facetious takedown request to a shopping portal that an ad for baby’s diapers “harmed minors” by potentially causing babies’ rashes.<br /><br />"Of the 7 intermediaries to which takedown notices were sent, 6 intermediaries over-complied with the notices, despite the apparent flaws in them," stated the draft report on the research. "From the responses to the takedown notices, it can be reasonably presumed that not all intermediaries have sufficient legal competence or resources to deliberate on the legality of an expression."<br /><br />"This is just the tip of the iceberg,” commented Abraham, adding that he was told by at least one major international intermediary company operating in India that it was "constantly" receiving takedown requests.<br /><br />"Our empirical research demonstrates that intermediaries are unable to make the subjective test that is required of them," he added. "They are highly risk averse and they often choose to completely comply with the person sending a takedown notice."<br /><br />"There is clear anecdotal evidence that […] the recently notified rules have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and expression, and that there is no transparency or accountability."<br /><br />"What we have is a private censorship regime that is alive and kicking in India."</p>
<p>This blog post by by Kian Ganz was published in Legally India on 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this. Read it <a class="external-link" href="http://www.legallyindia.com/201112072434/Regulatory/kapil-sibal-to-sterilise-net-but-cis-sting-shows-6-out-of-7-websites-already-trigger-happy-to-censor-content-under-chilling-it-act">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/chilling-it-act'>http://editors.cis-india.org/chilling-it-act</a>
</p>
No publisher
praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-07T06:02:29Z
News Item
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Facebook, Google tell India they won’t screen for derogatory content
http://editors.cis-india.org/facebook-google-tell-india-they-won2019t-screen-for-derogatory-content
<b>In the world’s largest democracy, the government wants Internet sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google to screen and remove offensive content about religious figures and political leaders as soon as they learn about it. But those companies now say they can’t help. </b>
<p>India’s minister of communications Kapil Sibal began discussions with the online companies in September. On Tuesday, he told reporters the government will have to create new guidelines to disable such content from the Internet sites on its own.<br /><br />"We will not allow intermediaries to say that ‘we throw up our hands, we can’t do anything about it,’" Sibal said.<br /><br />Sibal had shown company executives derogatory images of the Prophet Mohammed and morphed pictures of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi that appeared on their platforms. Sibal said these images would offend "any reasonable person" and also hurt religious sentiments of Indians.<br /><br />But on Monday, according to Sibal, the company executives said they cannot do anything.<br /><br />Soon after Sibal’s news conference, Facebook said in a statement: “We will remove any content that violates our terms, which are designed to keep material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service.” Those parameters are unlikely to include all the images the government of India wants screened out.<br /><br />Sibal’s move did not come as a surprise for some observers in India, which has the third-largest Internet-user community in the world--more than 100 million people. Earlier this year, India introduced new rules that called on Web sites, service providers and search engines to not host information that could be regarded as “harmful, “blasphemous” or “disparaging.” The rules also called on Web sites to remove offensive material within 36 hours of a complaint.<br /><br />"I can’t believe a democracy is doing this," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of India’s Center for Internet and Society. He said recent, unpublished research conducted by the group showed that "such rules have a chilling effect on the freedom of expression on the Internet." Researchers sent mock take-down notices to seven sites, complaining about their content. Abraham said six sites immediately deleted content. "They did not even verify the validity of our flawed complaint. They over-complied," he said.<br /><br />Sibal’s announcement also sparked a debate on Twitter, where Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor and Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah weighed in:</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/shashi.jpg/image_preview" title="shashi tharoor" height="82" width="176" alt="shashi tharoor" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/omar.jpg/image_preview" title="omar abdullah" height="89" width="178" alt="omar abdullah" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/jilian.jpg/image_preview" title="jillian" height="80" width="165" alt="jillian" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
<p>The Streisand effect is an online phenomenon in which an attempt to censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information further. (It is named after Barbara Streisand, who attempted in 2003 to hide pictures of her giant home; that only created more interest.)<br />But a blogger who calls himself the “Pragmatic Desi” argued that India had its own constraints: </p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/pragmatic.jpg/image_preview" title="pragmatic" height="88" width="185" alt="pragmatic" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
<p>But Member of Parliament Varun Gandi said that’s precisely why the Internet shouldn’t be censored:</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/varun.jpg/image_preview" title="varun gandhi" height="95" width="189" alt="varun gandhi" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
<p>The article written by Rama Lakshmi was originally published in the Washington Post on 6 December 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this. Read it <a class="external-link" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/facebook-google-tell-india-they-wont-screen-for-derogatory-content/2011/12/06/gIQAUo59YO_blog.html">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/facebook-google-tell-india-they-won2019t-screen-for-derogatory-content'>http://editors.cis-india.org/facebook-google-tell-india-they-won2019t-screen-for-derogatory-content</a>
</p>
No publisher
praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-07T05:25:52Z
News Item
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FTN: Should social networking sites be censored?
http://editors.cis-india.org/censor-social-networking-sites
<b>Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal met the representatives of Facebook, Google and others seeking to device a screening mechanism. Sunil Abraham was on CNN-IBN from 10.00 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. speaking about freedom of expression in India.</b>
<p><strong>VIDEO</strong></p>
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<p> </p>
<p> Watch the original video on IBN Live <a class="external-link" href="http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/209417/ftn-should-social-networking-sites-be-censored.html">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/censor-social-networking-sites'>http://editors.cis-india.org/censor-social-networking-sites</a>
</p>
No publisher
praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-08T05:32:41Z
News Item
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Govt wants to scrub the Internet clean
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/scrub-the-internet-clean
<b>Web advocacy groups, experts say govt’s move to evolve content guidelines amounts to censorship. This article by Surabhi Agarwal & Leslie D’monte was published in Livemint on 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this article.</b>
<p>India, the world’s largest democracy, may force companies such as Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Facebook Inc. to take down online content that it deems offensive because they haven’t been able to come up with an effective self-censorship mechanism governing millions of users.</p>
<p>The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government had no option but to "evolve guidelines" to ensure that "blasphemous content on the Internet or television is not allowed", with Internet and social networking sites such as those above "failing to respond to and cooperate with" the government’s request to keep "objectionable" content out of their websites, Kapil Sibal, minister of communications and information technology (IT), said in New Delhi on Tuesday.</p>
<p>His comments unleashed a firestorm of criticism by Internet advocacy groups and experts, who said the move amounted to censorship and was anti-democratic, impractical and unwarranted since existing laws were comprehensive enough to remove "objectionable" content. The move, they argued, would also stem the growth of user-generated content sites, and thus the Internet itself.</p>
<p>The government has been battling a series of corruption scandals and criticism of its inability to move forward on policy reforms. A campaign against corruption fuelled by online support has also challenged the government’s authority to legislate, forcing its own version of an anti-graft legislation onto the agenda.</p>
<p>The latest move by the government follows the introduction of new rules to the Information Technology Act, 2008, that were published earlier this year, also heavily criticized, that called on Internet service providers (ISPs) along with other entities to police online postings, including blogs.</p>
<p>Sibal referred to what he considered objectionable content as a "matter of grave concern", which affects the "sensibility of our people and is against our cultural ethos".</p>
<p>Once the new policy framework is implemented, companies “will be duty-bound to share information about those who post content, even if it (the content) is posted outside India”. He didn’t say by when the policy would be put in place.</p>
<p>Discussions with executives from the firms mentioned above had begun in September, Sibal said. They had been asked to come up with solutions to address the perceived problem in a month’s time and had failed to do so, he said.</p>
<p>According to local media reports, the move follows posts about some senior Congress leaders, including party president Sonia Gandhi. The minister, who is also one of India’s top lawyers, did not refer to any specific "objectionable" material during his press briefing, but rued that “the content has still not been removed".</p>
<p>Google India defended the right of free speech, while saying that it didn’t condone illegality.</p>
<p>"Even where content is legal but breaks our own terms and conditions, we take that down too, once we’ve been notified about it," Google India said in a release. "But it also means that when content is legal but controversial, we don’t remove it because people’s differing views should be respected, so long as they are legal."</p>
<p>Facebook India also said that it would remove any content that crossed the line.</p>
<p>It "has policies and onsite features in place that enable people to report abusive content", the company said. "We will remove any content that violates our terms, which are designed to keep material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service."</p>
<p>While Yahoo India declined to comment, Microsoft did not respond to an email till press time.</p>
<p>Internet censorship is a rising trend, with approximately 40 countries filtering the Web in varying degrees, including democratic and non-democratic governments. Governments are using increasingly sophisticated censorship and surveillance techniques, including blocking social networks, to restrict a variety of types of content, says the 2010 Global Network Initiative (GNI) report. GNI seeks to protect freedom of speech online.</p>
<p>This August, for instance, the Centre had written to the department of telecommunications, asking it to "ensure effective monitoring of Twitter and Facebook", which minister of state for communications and IT Milind Deora acknowledged a few days later in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha. He mentioned access to “encrypted data” on social networking sites, but did not elaborate on the subject.</p>
<p>Currently, the Indian Telegraph Act and the IT Act, 2008, (amendments were introduced in IT Act, 2000) give the government the power to monitor, intercept and even block online conversations and websites. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has put up a list of 11 such websites blocked by a government order. The data was received from the department of information technology (DIT).</p>
<p>Moreover, under section 79 of the IT Intermediary (Rules and Guidelines), 2011, intermediaries (comprising telcos, ISPs, 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.</p>
<p>In case the intermediary doesn’t find the content objectionable, the matter will have to be contested in a court of law.</p>
<p>"Currently, you need a court of law to direct a company in case something has to be removed. That takes a lot of time. So there has to be a mechanism that is faster in dealing with such content as (it) can be very damaging," said a DIT official, who did not want to be named.</p>
<p>"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," said Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court lawyer and cyber law expert. However, he wondered how the government would go about implementing the task of monitoring each and every conversation on an unstructured Internet.</p>
<p>Bangalore-based CIS, an Internet advocacy group, said "this pre-emptive manual screening of content, if implemented, would sound the death knell of freedom of expression in India".</p>
<p>"This screening is worrisome. Companies will err on the side of caution in a bid to please the government, and the courts will not be involved," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of CIS. “This is not only unconstitutional, but technically impossible too. Speech and words have nuances. Can humans decipher these with accuracy?"</p>
<p>The move will undermine key principles on which the Internet was built, said Nikhil Pahwa, editor and publisher of digital industry news and analysis blog MediaNama.</p>
<p>"It is completely impossible to enforce this. There is no way that content can be prescreened before it is placed online," he said. “It also kills the concept of immediate communication, which the Internet stands for."</p>
<p>Cyber law expert NA Vijayashankar, who runs cyber law information portal Naavi, said: "The government has valid reason to control anti-national activities on the Internet. But there are existing laws for it. The current proposition is impractical since pre-scrutiny of content on the Internet is not possible. It will affect the growth of user-generated content, which is helping Internet penetration grow in India."</p>
<p>Internet censorship happens frequently in countries such as Myanmar, Cuba, China (which had blocked keyword searches of the word "Egypt" on the Internet as well as on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter), Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. On the very day the Egyptian government set out to block Internet services in the country (in January), US Republican senator Susan Collins floated the COICA Bill, popularly called the "kill switch" Bill, which, if approved, would give the US president similar powers.</p>
<p>Read the original published in Livemint <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2011/12/06222621/Govt-wants-to-scrub-the-Intern.html?atype=tp">here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/scrub-the-internet-clean'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/scrub-the-internet-clean</a>
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praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-07T04:07:03Z
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Debate: Online content row-1
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/online-content-row
<b>In a debate moderated by TIMES NOW's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, panelists Chandan Mitra, Editor-in-Chief, 'The Pioneer' & MP, BJP; Sabeer Bhatia, Co-founder, Hotmail; Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society; Ankit Fadia, Ethical Hacker; Suhel Seth, Managing Partner Counselage; Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, Cyber Media and Rajesh Charia, President, Internet Service Providers Association of India discuss the issue if the Government should make clear definition of what is objectionable to internet/social media companies and draw a clear distinction between communally incitable material and political censorship.</b>
<p>Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today (Dec 6) vowed to stop offensive and defamatory content on internet sites as a controversy raged over government's move to monitor content in cyber space. Maintaining that the government does not want to interfere with the freedom of the press, he said if the social networking sites are not willing to cooperate with the government on stopping incendiary material "then it is the duty of the government to think of steps that we need." Sibal's hurriedly-called press conference came against backdrop of government's meetings with the officials from Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo over last few weeks after offensive material particularly against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was put on the net. He said his request for cooperation from them fell on "deaf ears" and "we will not allow intermediaries to say that the throw up our hands and we cannot do anything about it."</p>
<p>Facebook in its reaction said it will cooperate in removing any content that violates its terms which are designed to keep material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service. Google said it will abide by local law and take any material if it violates its policies but asserted that it will not remove any content just because it is controversial. Google said that when content is illegal it abides by local law and removes it. And even where the content is legal but violates "our terms and conditions, we take that down too, once we have been notified." However, it says, when content is legal and does not violate its policies, it will not remove just because it is controversial.<br /><br />Even as Sibal defended the government's move, criticism poured in the cyber space that India should not emulate countries like China in attempting to gag freedom of expression. However, the Minister got support from Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP, who is popular in cyber world. "Have to say I support Kapil Sibal on the examples he gave me: deeply offensive material about religions & communities that could incite riots," Tharoor tweeted. But his political rivals and MPs Varun Gandhi and Jayant Choudhary differed. Gandhi said Internet is the only truly democratic medium free of "vested interests, media owners & paid-off journos. Can see why Sibal wants to gag it," he said. Chaudhary said "Censorship of the internet - Forget the desirability issue for a minute, IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE??!!!"</p>
<p><em>Sunil Abraham was on Times Now from 9.05 p.m. to 9.45 p.m. on December 6, 2011 speaking about freedom of expression in India</em>.</p>
<p>See the debate on <a class="external-link" href="http://www.timesnow.tv/Debate-Online-content-row-1/videoshow/4390736.cms">Times Now</a></p>
<p><strong>VIDEO</strong></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/online-content-row'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/online-content-row</a>
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praskrishna
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2011-12-07T11:06:19Z
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India’s dreams of web censorship
http://editors.cis-india.org/web-censorship
<b>If you are offended by this post, please contact Kapil Sibal, India’s telecoms and IT minister, and he will make sure it is promptly taken down.</b>
<p>Actually, if Sibal has his way and you are offended by this post, the armies of people to be employed by internet companies operating in India to monitor their sites for potentially offensive material – whether it originates in India or abroad – will ensure that it is removed before it can even be published. And good luck to all of them with that.</p>
<p>That, anyway, was the gist of Sibal’s combative press conference in the courtyard of his Delhi home on Tuesday, the day after the <a class="external-link" href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/india-asks-google-facebook-others-to-screen-user-content/">New York Times reported</a> he had met executives from Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft to discuss the preemptive removal of “offensive material”.</p>
<p>The press conference was prompted by uproar that swept Twitter on Monday night – one of the sites, incidentally, that Sibal would like to monitor – and was carried live on all major news channels.<br /><br />Social networking sites have gained a lot of traction in India and are much used by politicians, celebrities and the burgeoning, young middle class.<br /><br />"I believe that no reasonable person aware of the sensibilities of large sections of communities in this country and aware of community standards as they are applicable in India would wish to see this content in the public domain," Sibal said, referring to "offensive material" he had shown some reporters prior to the conference. He added that the government did not believe in censorship.<br /><br />According to the NYT, Sibal showed a group of IT execs a Facebook page that criticized Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress Party, calling it "unacceptable".<br /><br />"We will remove any content that violates our terms, which are designed to keep material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service," Facebook said in a statement.<br /><br />Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment. Google said it would issue a statement later in the day.<br /><br />Sibal first approached the companies on September 5, giving them four weeks to present proposals for how they might comply with his request, he said. With no response by October 19, the ministry sent a reminder. On November 29, Sibal again met with the IT execs. They responded on Monday, saying they could not comply.<br /><br />An Indian employee of one of foreign tech company, when asked about Sibal’s demand that each outfit set up dedicated teams to monitor content in real time, let out an extended, almost hysterical laugh, before regaining composure and asking: "Do you know how many users we have?"<br /><br /></p>
<p class="callout">Indeed, even in a country with low internet penetration like India – 100m people regularly use the internet, less than 10 per cent of India’s 1.2bn population – the task of monitoring real-time content generated on millions of sites opens up legal wormholes and is technically impossible, Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society, told beyondbrics.</p>
<p><br />"Technically what he’s asking for is an impossibility: it’s not possible in the age of web 2.0 to manually curate or censor social media content," he said. “This is obvious to all of us. Isn’t it strange that the minister of IT, who seems to understand a lot of complex issues, is actually in favour of something like this?"<br /><br />Abraham warned that the focus on blasphemous and vaguely defined "offensive" speech was dangerous, noting that the Hindu profession of belief in multiple gods is blasphemous to Muslims, Christians and Jews.<br /><br />But Sibal was defiant.<br /><br />Asked what would be deemed "offensive", he said: “We will define it, don’t worry, certainly, we will evolve guidelines…to ensure that such blasphemous content” is not publicly available in India.<br /><br />Asked whether his idea was technically feasible, he responded: "It is a feasible proposition, and we will inform you how as and when, we will inform you as and when."<br /><br />When it was pointed out that the internet was a global phenomenon and that content originating outside of India might be hard to control, Sibal said: "We will certainly ask [companies] to give us information even on content posted outside of India – we will ask them for information, we will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue."<br /><br />So, again, if you are offended by this post, feel free to drop him a line. And good luck.</p>
<p>The original blog post was published by the Financial Time's beyondbrics on December 6, 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this blog post. Read it <a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/12/06/indias-dreams-of-web-censorship/#axzz1fpB3EoKZ">here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/web-censorship'>http://editors.cis-india.org/web-censorship</a>
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sunil
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Internet Governance
2012-03-26T06:59:36Z
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