The past few days have been a little oxymoronic for the Indian government, hasn’t it?
First, they proposed to bring a change in FDI rules for retail. The opposition protested. Hah, the goverment thought, they always do, these opportunistic assholes.
Then, Mamata protested.
The government shat in its empowered group of ministerial chaddis.
The FDI was rolled back (officially put ‘on hold’) no sooner than you could say Walmart.
The Socialists won. All hail those sickle wielding communists.
I think this was when Kapil Sibal decided he has to take the communist regime route. He must have sensed an opportunity here, to befriend more communists, you know, the Chinese.
Uhm... SCREEN THEM! (image via wikipedia.org)
He decided to ‘ask’ social networking sites, most notable Google, Facebook and Twitter, to remove objectionable material on their sites. He also added that there ought to be a screening mechanism for content on these sites which may play a role in allowing libellous, defamatory and inflammatory content that may cause polarization of the society.
Well, no offense, but you’re talking out of your ass, Mr. Sibal.
All this shit is coming from an outdated mode of thought. Imagine a newspaper carrying a headline “KAPIL SIBAL SAYS HE’S A WOMAN TRAPPED IN A MAN’S BODY”.
The first instinct of the government and other goonda elements of society will be to beat the living shit out of a) the reporter, b) the editor of the newspaper, c) the newspaper office and d) miscellaneous bystanders.
Now, when someone called, say, @thehotsexykapilsiballover tweets something like that, these aforementioned elements don’t know what to break. Or even who to break. The reporter is anonymous, there is no editor (apparently) and the newspaper does not have an office in India. Exporting goondaism is a little expensive, you see.
So, all this pent up energy is being wasted, in the eyes of the government. Or worse, redirected. Sharad Pawar gets slapped, shoes are being thrown at almost every minister and people are following the other senile leader who talks about beating up alcoholics.
Screening content is a euphemism for censorship and no matter how hard you try to deny it, it will remain to be so. The costs involved in the kind of screening that Sibal wants will not only put websites out of business but will deter future investments in this industry.
My second contention with this rule is regarding definition. How are you defining ‘social media’? Are you limiting yourself to the big three (Facebook, Twitter, and Google) or are there other sites that you have in mind? What is a construct of a social networking site in your view? If you really think about it, blogs are a form of social media. So are emails. Where are you going to draw the line between public slander and some bitching via email?
If such a definition is achieved, who is liable? Is it the one who posts (or tweets) an offensive post (or tweet)? Would it be someone who ‘likes’ a post? Would it be someone who shares (or retweets) the post?
The internet is full of idiots, it’s true. People abuse it by going after certain individuals, it’s true. In a country like ours, religious sentiments and moral patrols are always on a short fuse. But don’t blame the internet for it! Don’t blame social media for it!
Educate people. Goad them, coax them to not spread religious hatred or promote intolerance. If they still don’t listen to you, jail them, but only when there is a real risk, not because someone questioned the origins of Sonia Gandhi or talks about Rahul’s alleged drug problem.
If Sonia or Rahul have a problem with what is said, let them sue the authors. In today’s world, there is no such thing called anonymity. Although I use a pseudonym, I know for a fact that I have a big enough cyber fingerprints to identify me.
But, we seem to not be able to do even that well.
There is a true story of how a man got imprisoned for an offensive post he never posted. The ISP in question (it was Airtel), gave the cops the wrong details which led to an innocent man being jailed.
The reason why I bring this up is this – we need to improve our detection techniques. If the government is really serious about nipping spurious content on the web, they have to make sure they put in place methods and technology that are able to locate and identify these slanderers. Until you actually do that, we will remain anonymous.
Most social networking sites have a pretty good system of dealing with offensive content. The government should work with these people (they’re pretty smart people, you know) and help improve its cyber space capabilities. This may help us from the cyber sodomy that our Chinese counterparts thrust upon the government websites. Just, maybe.
Improve systems, Mr. Sibal. The internet ain’t broke. So, don’t try to fix it.
Amen.
gayathri
December 7, 2011
I hope the govt pays more attention towards tracking suspicious email or chat conversations of terror groups instead of focusing on other activities.
Telecom security should be in place. Initially, the cyber cafes used to ask us for photo id, but now they hardly care. Just sign up for the cyber security and then log in with user id and password anywhere, anytime. They don’t even scan your photo id for identification. Now what if somebody else uses my id and password for suspicious activities? Who will be caught?
Similarly, service providers dont ask for certain imp docs. For example, when I went to submit my change of address form…my mobile service provider did not even bother to ask for Leave and License agreement. They just noted down my new address and send my bill to the new place. What if i was a terrorist and change locations frequently? How will they track me?
Such security loopholes worry me endlessly. Why divert useful resources and money to such random things? use it intelligently, hain naa?
The Wabbster
December 8, 2011
Yes. I agree. Kapil Sibal’s argument is that the anonymity is misused by netizens. But there are several checks that are already stipulated (but not enforced) that can sort it out.
Misplaced priorities.