Cornered Indian Ruling Party Proposes Internet and Social Media Censorship à-la China

[btarunr]

India's United Progressive Alliance government is mulling censorship of the internet à-la China, to filter out any content that speaks against members of the ruling party. India's multi-partisan democracy is increasingly making use of the web as a medium of political discourse and exchange, something that only works to make voters more informed. Union minister of IT and Telecommunications Kapil Sibal kicked off a storm this week when he announced that he is in talks with representatives of search engines and social networking websites, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and Microsoft to work out a censorship model that filters content that "unfairly maligns" the government. Apart from anti-government content, the government is concerned about hateful or "blasphemous" content, which could disturb communal harmony. "Some of the content which is being carried is blasphemous. This can hurt religious sentiments and it has to be removed," Sibal said.

Google, fresh out of a censorship and GMail espionage tussle with China, stated that it will not remove any content from its search results that are legal, merely on grounds of being "controversial". "We work really hard to both follow the law and also give people as much access to information as we can. So we follow the law when it comes to illegal content. And even where content is legal but breaks our own terms and conditions we take that down too, once we've been notified about it," said Google in a statement. "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."



Facebook, on the other hand, sounded more cooperative about Sibal's plan. "[Facebook] 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," it stated. Facebook said it recognises the government's interest in minimising the amount of abusive content that is available online and will continue to engage with the Indian authorities as they debate on the issue. Opposition parties slammed the government. The current United Progressive Alliance government finds itself cornered with allegations of corruption spanning across various ministries.

Source: New York Times

[Easo]

Emmm, maybe write it from a more neutral point of view. o_O
Otherwise, yea, its dumb, its too late to try "chaining" teh interwebs.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Easo

Emmm, maybe write it from a more neutral point of view. o_O
Otherwise, yea, its dumb, its too late to try "chaining" teh interwebs.

This is as neutral as it can possibly get.

[assaulter_99]

Hm so after RIM, social networks are the next target. Nice. Sad thing is all these companies will bow to pressure, otherwise they will be missing on big big emerging markets. It seems like the arab spring wasn't just for that part of the world, western govts are getting scared of the power of the web too.

[Completely Bonkers]

The media in India should collaborate and resist. How? Make no comment, absolutely no comments whatsoever, about any action or statement or politician in this party. For a whole month. A total media blackout. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

[qubit]

Yeah, why am I know surprised that corruption and censorship is spreading far and wide?
These abuses should be reported about everywhere and often.

[Velvet Wafer]

Some people just deserve to be shot...greed and corruption are not excusable.

[thunderising]

We shud just ignore them.

It should be like, we don't give a fuck about you loser politicians.

Serve them up their balls.

[ArchStupid]

Wow, what a pathetic propaganda attempt by btarunr.
I don't know much about the political atmosphere in India, but I sure as hell didn't come to tPU to read about THAT.

Going to read all of his articles with a grain of salt from now on.
Meh.

[Frick]

Originally Posted by ArchStupid

Wow, what a pathetic propaganda attempt by btarunr.
I don't know much about the political atmosphere in India, but I sure as hell didn't come to tPU to read about THAT.

Going to read all of his articles with a grain of salt from now on.
Meh.

I was a bit dissapointed to that it was him writing this. He used to be so pure.

[badtaylorx]

yeah.....but will the govt run (in a) crysis???

[assaulter_99]

Originally Posted by ArchStupid

Wow, what a pathetic propaganda attempt by btarunr.
I don't know much about the political atmosphere in India, but I sure as hell didn't come to tPU to read about THAT.

Going to read all of his articles with a grain of salt from now on.
Meh.

Lets be honest here a minute, we all know that these measures are to curb freedom of speech we have on the internet, don't we? This piece of news, even though I'm not an indian nor am I keen on politics has hence every right to be published here. Also don't forget that you aren't forced to read every piece of news posted.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by ArchStupid

Wow, what a pathetic propaganda attempt by btarunr.
I don't know much about the political atmosphere in India, but I sure as hell didn't come to tPU to read about THAT.

Going to read all of his articles with a grain of salt from now on.
Meh.

Originally Posted by Frick

I was a bit dissapointed to that it was him writing this. He used to be so pure.

Rewrote the article. What do you think?

[qubit]

Originally Posted by btarunr

Rewrote the article. What do you think?

The first version had much more bite to it - and you spoke the truth, this corruption is terrible. The first version was much better. This is now the watered down, bland version one would see at any other news site and it's BORING!

Don't let the whingers distract you from writing a cutting article telling it like it is.

[HalfAHertz]

How do governments benefit from isolating their people, from limiting their potential to learn and exchange art, emotions, etc? Of course the same politicians that implement these stupid rules are never subjected to them ...

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by qubit

The first version had much more bite to it - and you spoke the truth, this corruption is terrible. The first version was much better. This is now the watered down, bland version one would see at any other news site and it's BORING!

Don't let the whingers distract you from writing a cutting article telling it like it is.

I don't mind rewriting articles if some of the readers are so passionately butthurt that they judge my 5000+ articles history with one.

And this is not about Indian politics. It's about internet censorship. If a 1.2 billion strong democracy censors its internet, smaller democracies are next in line with something similar. It doesn't matter if India is the flawed democracy that is, it doesn't matter if yours isn't. It's about the standards of "what's kosher in a 21st century democracy". America is already taking a big step in that direction with ProtectIP (an all-out net-censorship legislation masquerading as an "anti-piracy" one).

[BUCK NASTY]

Originally Posted by assaulter_99

Lets be honest here a minute, we all know that these measures are to curb freedom of speech we have on the internet, don't we? This piece of news, even though I'm not an indian nor am I keen on politics has hence every right to be published here. Also don't forget that you aren't forced to read every piece of news posted.

Agreed assaulter! What happens in India(or anywhere else for that matter) could set a dangerous precedence for other countries/regimes. While this may hit "home" for bta, we all should pay close attention. How long before a situation like this comes to your country?

[Completely Bonkers]

Let the people vote! Put a vote up here on the article btarunr

[BUCK NASTY]

Originally Posted by Completely Bonkers

Let the people vote! Put a vote up here on the article btarunr

Vote on what? This is news.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Completely Bonkers

Let the people vote! Put a vote up here on the article btarunr

Go vote.

[jmcslob]

sorry to hear about this....

[Zubasa]

Failure of the month: Bulldozer vs Politicians
Somehow Bulldozer managed to win...............

[qubit]

Originally Posted by btarunr

I don't mind rewriting articles if some of the readers are so passionately butthurt that they judge my 5000+ articles history with one.

mkay, if you're happy with doing this. One could argue what about all the people that like the sharper style? We both know there's lots of us on this side of the fence, too. Ultimately, you can't please everyone, whatever you do, lol.

Originally Posted by btarunr

And this is not about Indian politics. It's about internet censorship. If a 1.2 billion strong democracy censors its internet, smaller democracies are next in line with something similar. It doesn't matter if India is the flawed democracy that is, it doesn't matter if yours isn't. It's about the standards of "what's kosher in a 21st century democracy". America is already taking a big step in that direction with ProtectIP (an all-out net-censorship legislation masquerading as an "anti-piracy" one).

Well, the article is specifically about what's happening in India, but of course this cancer spreads doesn't it? So yes, let's out it anytime and anywhere we can on millions of news posts and blogs all around the world.

Originally Posted by BUCK NASTY

Agreed assaulter! What happens in India(or anywhere else for that matter) could set a dangerous precedence for other countries/regimes. While this may hit "home" for bta, we all should pay close attention. How long before a situation like this comes to your country?

A big +1!

[PopcornMachine]

I think btarunr has earned the right to comment on something close to home for him.

His post as it stands now if very interesting and informative. Had no clue about the situation in India.

Those that don't like it, well, gee, ain't that just awful. If reading a post you don't like is the worst thing that happens to you, count yourself lucky.

[Fx]

Originally Posted by btarunr

I don't mind rewriting articles if some of the readers are so passionately butthurt that they judge my 5000+ articles history with one.

And this is not about Indian politics. It's about internet censorship. If a 1.2 billion strong democracy censors its internet, smaller democracies are next in line with something similar. It doesn't matter if India is the flawed democracy that is, it doesn't matter if yours isn't. It's about the standards of "what's kosher in a 21st century democracy". America is already taking a big step in that direction with ProtectIP (an all-out net-censorship legislation masquerading as an "anti-piracy" one).

everyone that is bitching about this article needs to read and reread this comment and the article then figure out how that you are in the same big picture... this is quite potentially your news in the future...

we need the uncut version of news and you guys do a damn good job