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Indian government to ban offensive material from Internet
Channel News Asia - December 6, 2011
Internet users in India are outraged, and are calling the move by the government "regressive".
The Indian government recently held talks with executives of Facebook, Google and Yahoo, asking them to check all content before it is uploaded on social websites. Authorities seem particularly annoyed with tampered images of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh being circulated online.
Internet companies were also asked to filter out all defamatory and pornographic material.
Kapil Sibal, Information and Technology Minister, said: "On sites like Youtube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, the subject matter was so offensive that it would hurt the religious sentiments of large sections of community in this country."
Internet companies say they are not able to filter out offensive material. Most are based outside of India, and they say it is difficult for them to decide what sort of content would be considered "objectionable".
Also, India has more than 100 million Internet users, which makes it impossible to screen everything that's put up on the Net.
Users too have expressed anger over the censorship. Websites like Twitter and Facebook are abuzz with comments calling the government's move as regressive. Dheeraj Jangra, a student, said: "I think this is the first step by the government in the direction of complete censorship of social networking sites."
Devesh Gupta, a student, said: "How can you censor someone's content? Who will decide what is objectionable or not? If you find something objectionable on a website, you are free to complain. But why censor the entire content?"
Last year, the government battled against Research In Motion – makers of the BlackBerry smartphone – over access to encrypted messages. Now the Indian government is planning to set up a unit to monitor information posted on websites and social media sites. (CNA/de)
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