

Social networking websites asked to screen content by February 6 in India - srijan4
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/websites-asked-to-screen-content-by-february-6/214659-3.html

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codelust
The temptation here to go on a tirade against a party or the government is way
too overwhelming (it is a private criminal case), but I would urge everyone to
take a different view of this. The laws and the legal system in India are ill-
equipped and not adequately trained to understand the nuances of the digital
world. I had a first-hand experience of this a few years ago at my last job
when we were dragged into an investigation that was looking into defamatory
comments posted against a particular individual.

We had to work with the cyber crime cell to help them find what they were
looking for and found the officers to be well-meaning and nice people. The
only downside was the training given to them, which was next to non-existent.
We eventually wound up helping them out a lot and also worked with them to
help them get a better understanding of the issue at hand. I actually felt
quite bad for them. The office we went to had a handful of ancient PCs of
which only one was connected to the internet - a far cry from anything that
you'd expect.

The same thing applies to courts, judgements are often handed out without a
good understanding of the digital world. A judge when shown awful content will
almost every time order its removal, there is hardly anything surprising about
it.

This certainly won't be the last word on this, but we have a long road ahead
increasing awareness and training of both the legal system and enforcement. By
the time we finally get there, there will be a lot of mistakes arising from
totally unintended consequences, but I am confident that we'll eventually get
it right.

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trapped123
This is coming from the very highest levels of government. So your logic about
ill-equipped offices or inadequate training does not apply to them. They are
billionaires many time over. The minister who is the brain behind this
legislation is one of highest paid lawyers in India so you can't assume that
he is not able to comprehend the digital laws and their consequences. They are
taking these measures to stifle the voice of middle class which is most
vociferous against corruption. So your attempt to generate needless sympathy
for them is unfortunately not grounded in reality.

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jk
Sorry, but you are completely mistaken. India does not have any legislation
about posts in social network. The news is about a court order to remove
derogatory posts about religion. It is not about any individual. I guess you
mixed up this news and an older report.

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akashshah
OPs headline is misleading. The court is just ordering the websites to remove
a particular instance of "derogatory" material. Is it that bad? Users can do
this themselves on many of these sites by marking the material offensive. I
read the article twice and it doesn't seem as if the court has asked all 21
websites to screen all content by February 6, but only remove the particular
cases submitted by the petitioner.

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fotoblur
Sites like Facebook, Google, and even my own photography community Fotoblur
were developed in the US, where freedom of speech is tolerated. Remember,
freedom of speech is in place not to protect nice language, its there to
protect the derogatory kind. We don't need rights to protect nice language.
Think about it. So it follows then that technology developed under that
platform of thinking doesn't always translate well to ones which have
different customs, religions, and laws. Unfortunately, we can not assume or
expect that free and expressive ways of thinking are acceptable in other parts
of the world.

For instance, Fotoblur publishes a magazine in which an Iranian photographer
was published. Unfortunately we couldn't send him a copy because American
companies can not ship to Iran. We worked out a deal where we'd ship him the
issues to a friend in Canada, then he would deliver them on a trip he was
making to Iran. It worried me a bit because I found out that the possession of
material containing nudity was a jail-able offense in Iran (that magazine
issue had a few artistic nudes in it). Lesson learned: Our publication did not
translate well within Iranian cultural laws.

The question for me is where is the line drawn when it comes to objectionable
material. Most sites have TOSs that restrict such material that is considered
objectionable or offensive anyway. I'd also imagine that this type of content
constitutes less than 0.01% of the material and is being blown out of
proportion and shouldn't even be part of the public debate.

Regardless, rather than having each nation determine its own laws governing
Internet Services I propose a global consortium be developed. Here is why:
<http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/cens3.html> Try navigating through this
mess is you wish to abide by international law when it comes to control over
your content. Just not possible.

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Zirro
"The contents are certainly disrespectful to the religious sentiments and
faith and seem to be intended to outrage the feelings of religious people
whether Hindu, Muslim or Christian."

I say: So what? As long as it does not promote hurting people, or people are
forced to watch it, it shouldn't matter. There are tons of things said on the
Internet, attacking which companies people like, for example. This can hurt a
lot as well, I know that first-hand.

The important thing is, I still chose to consume the hater-content. Removing
something just because it risks offending someone would harm free speech, no
matter how much it hurts me personally.

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jk
"I say: So what? As long as it does not promote hurting people, or people are
forced to watch it, it shouldn't matter."

It matters a lot in India. To understand the real problem, you have to
understand the social problems in India (and Asia to some extent). Even though
literacy rate is increasing, religious fanaticism is not decreasing. It is
very common to find highly educated people talking bad about religions they
don't believe in. A small post derogating some religion is sufficient for
silly extremist groups and crappy media (the news website ibnlive is a good
example) to make a big issue. Extremist groups bash these posts to give
themselves publicity. For media, it is all about ratings and advertisement so
they keep broadcasting news about such posts all day. Both these groups
conveniently shut their eyes on the religious polarization caused by their
actions. This hurts the society and it hurts the country economically.

I also don't believe in hindering free speech. But when I see the social
problems around me, I feel we will be better of with some regulations.

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fotoblur
Thats true, the media focuses too much on the infrequent cases. I'd assume
that these posts constitute less than 0.01% of the posts on any of the
aforementioned social networks, probably less, but then receive the most media
attention. This kind of media behavior is a global problem however, and not
particular to India.

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shriphani
Too many old farts in charge of too many important things.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Let's all celebrate ageism. Yay!

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kelnos
Please don't trot out the "-ism" card. Yes, the OP's words were a bit flippant
and perhaps insulting, but older generations are, on average, more
conservative and less tech-savvy than younger generations. That's just how it
is; it's not insulting to the older crowd, it's just what one would naturally
expect. But, all this tends to present a real problem when the law clashes
with technology.

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SoftwareMaven
The problem I have with it is that there are undoubtably young people working
in the same systems, upholding the same values. It's easy to write it off as
"old farts", when, in reality, it is entrenched power that is problematic. But
that isn't a one-sentence comment that writes off a lot of work by older
people (fwiw, I'm not yet 40) to make the world a better place for the
youngen's.

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jim_kaiser
The government doesn't like derogatory pictures or comments about its puppet
master Sonia Gandhi and Muhammad and Jesus.. apparently..

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plinkplonk
(some perspective from an Indian living in India). This will be challenged in
higher courts and almost certainly get overturned. I wouldn't worry too much.
It is actually better that the Supreme Court rules on this (if it goes that
far). Lower courts sometimes have dumb judges but the Supreme Court has judges
of a relatively high calibre.

Also, from a purely pragmatic perspective, settling the legality of this will
take years, and Google et al can afford some seriously good lawyers.

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tiles
From an entirely US perspective, this is good. If the court order followed
through, there'd be fallout, and perhaps some of the 21 social networking
sites will decide they don't want to play ball and they shut down in India
instead. Then there exists a clear-cut example where overreaching regulation
interferes with the Internet, another minor blow to SOPA discussions in the
US.

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amalag
They won't shut down the sites for India, is cheaper to just hire a small team
that will shut down some content based on objections. I don't think India has
the concept of universal free speech which US does.

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asto
You are right. One can go to jail here for speech that offends certain
sections of society (like religious groups)

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vamsee
Most likely this will be appealed in a higher court.

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pm90
Just as i suspected : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3372821>

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sagarun
I'd love to see those URLs to "derogatory content"!

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NewInstall
You'll be embarrassed by their banality.

We're talking of things like photographs of Sonia Gandhi with a moustache
drawn on her to photographs of nude women with Sonia's face superimposed.

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jim_kaiser
no comments?

