What's new

India Puts Tight Leash on Internet Free Speech

Elmo

RETIRED MOD
Jan 31, 2009
3,010
0
2,061
So who's going to criticise this here and get away with it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/technology/28internet.html?_r=3

MUMBAI, India — Free speech advocates and Internet users are protesting new Indian regulations restricting Web content that, among other things, can be considered “disparaging,” “harassing,” “blasphemous” or “hateful.”

The new rules, quietly issued by the country’s Department of Information Technology earlier this month and only now attracting attention, allow officials and private citizens to demand that Internet sites and service providers remove content they consider objectionable on the basis of a long list of criteria.


Critics of the new rules say the restrictions could severely curtail debate and discussion on the Internet, whose use has been growing fast in India.

The list of objectionable content is sweeping and includes anything that “threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states or public order.”

The rules highlight the ambivalence with which Indian officials have long treated freedom of expression. The country’s constitution allows “reasonable restrictions” on free speech but lawmakers have periodically stretched that definition to ban books, movies and other material about sensitive subjects like sex, politics and religion.

An Indian state, for example, recently banned an American author’s new biography of the Indian freedom fighter Mohandas Gandhi that critics have argued disparages Mr. Gandhi by talking about his relationship with another man.

Although fewer than 10 percent of Indians have access to the Internet, that number has been growing fast — especially on mobile devices. There are more than 700 million cellphone accounts in India.

The country has also established a thriving technology industry that writes software and creates Web services primarily for Western clients.

Even before the new rules — known as the Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011 — India has periodically tried to restrict speech on the Internet. In 2009, the government banned a popular and graphic online comic strip, Savita Bhabhi, about a housewife with an active sex life. Indian officials have also required social networking sites like Orkut to take down posts deemed offensive to ethnic and religious groups.


Using a freedom of information law, the Center for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based research and advocacy group, recently obtained and published a list of 11 Web sites banned by the Department of Information Technology. Other government agencies have probably blocked more sites, the group said.


The new Internet rules go further than existing Indian laws and restrictions, said Sunil Abraham, the executive director for the Center for Internet and Society. The rules require Internet “intermediaries” — an all-encompassing group that includes sites like YouTube and Facebook and companies that host Web sites or provide Internet connections — to respond to any demand to take down offensive content within 36 hours. The rules do not provide a way for content producers to defend their work or appeal a decision to take content down.

“These rules overly favor those who want to clamp down on freedom of expression,” Mr. Abraham said. “Whenever there are limits of freedom of expression, in order for those limits to be considered constitutionally valid, those limits have to be clear and not be very vague. Many of these rules that seek to place limits are very, very vague.”

An official for the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, an advocacy group based in New Delhi, said on Wednesday that it was considering a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the new rules.

“What are we, Saudi Arabia?” said Pushkar Raj, the group’s general secretary. “We don’t expect this from India. This is something very serious.”

An official at the Department of Information Technology, Gulshan Rai, did not return calls and messages.

The rules are based on a 2008 information technology law that India’s Parliament passed shortly after a three-day siege on Mumbai by Pakistan-based terrorists that killed more than 163 people. That law, among other things, granted authorities more expansive powers to monitor electronic communications for reasons of national security. It also granted privacy protections to consumers.

While advocates for free speech and civil liberties have complained that the 2008 law goes too far in violating the rights of Indians, Internet firms have expressed support for it. The law removed liability from Internet intermediaries as long as they were not active participants in creating content that was later deemed to be offensive.

Subho Ray, the president of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, which represents companies like Google and eBay, said the liability waiver was a big improvement over a previous law that had been used to hold intermediaries liable for hosting content created by others. In 2004, for instance, the police arrested eBay’s top India executive because a user of the company’s Indian auction site had offered to sell a video clip of a teenage couple having sex.

“The new I.T. Act (2008) is, in fact, a large improvement on the old one,” Mr. Ray said in an e-mail response to questions.

Mr. Ray said his association had not taken a stand on the new regulations. An India-based spokeswoman for Google declined to comment on the new rules, saying the company needed more time to respond.

Along with the new content regulations, the government also issued rules governing data security, Internet cafes and the electronic provision of government services.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 28, 2011, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: India Puts Tight Leash On Internet Free Speech..
 
Given the powers, governments will control what we think.

Problem is, they do have the power.

We want less regulation, not more, and the govt made me think this way :)
 
The list of objectionable content is sweeping and includes anything that “threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states or public order.”

No problem in this. This is not religion or people specific that you can criticise. But their intention to stop **** by starting new rules for cyber cafes is not good. :cry:
 
Why they put the restrictions quietly ????? Seems Govt of India wants to avoid facing criticism by outsiders

Not outsiders, GoI does not give a f**k what outsiders think. It is scared that this will be blown out by civil right activists.
Anyway, it is difficult to see how govt will charge anybody using this. It will not stick in courts for sure, the same way sedition laws do not.
 
So who's going to criticise this here and get away with it?

I can't tell you that but what I CAN tell you is who's certainly not going to like it.

People like a certain inactive member of PDF who have a habit of posting trash about the country without using an iota of their cognitive capabilities.

These things are required. We're a democracy, yes, but there's a limit to everything.

Not to mention it gives a new ray of hope to people like me who many a time think of reporting such e-trash to the authorities but then stop ourselves, thinking, Ah, WTH is going to happen anyways.

Now we know something will..
 
The list of objectionable content is sweeping and includes anything that “threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states or public order.”

No problem in this. This is not religion or people specific that you can criticise. But their intention to stop **** by starting new rules for cyber cafes is not good. :cry:

Watching **** is not illegal in India yet. I will take to street when legislation banning **** comes out. Hope anna Hazare will support me.
 
When did Eeeekta Kapooor join Dept of Information Technology?

Those new rules are intrusive and go against the freedom of speech so eloquently described in our constitution. No wonder the moral police want such rules passed below the media radar. Internet should be left alone! GoI is very stupid to allow for such 'policing'. Whoever supports such rules does not understand nor value human freedom. US nor Canada have any such laws to monitor internet and yet we dont see discontent among people here. Its the government policies which fuel discontent, not the internet or freedom of speech. GoI, pull up your socks or GTFO.

Support PUCL in their fight against this 'moral policing'. Down with internet regulation.
 
As long as **** isn't banned, im happy. Also, chuck Norris fan sites and runescape. Oh, and i want savita bhabi unbanned please.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 2, Members: 0, Guests: 2)


Pakistan Defence Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom