Kapil Sibal aims to restrict freedom of speech on the internet!

[IndianMascot]

Shocking: Under govt pressure, websites in private censorship


The shocking revelation comes in the wake of Union IT minister Kapil Sibal's call for censorship of social networking sites like Facebook, Google and Yahoo. In the CIS investigation, researchers sent "fraudulent" takedown letters to seven internet companies making claims without providing any evidence that certain third-party content violated provisions under the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules" that were issued in April 2011, the report on the CIS website says quoting Sunil Abraham, executive director of CIS.




One website removed two comments, while the other went even beyond the researcher’s request to remove only one comment and within 72 hours removed all 15 comments left by readers on the article.

 

[mehrotra.akash]

Kapil sibal might also want to look at real offensive things than some virtual stuff .. Is he going to order a blanket over these , all around India ?



You do know that there is international precedent for doing that

 

[naveen_reloaded]

You do know that there is international precedent for doing that

I dont understand...

 

[mehrotra.akash]

Covering up of statues deemed "indecent" has been done in other countries as well.

 

[naveen_reloaded]

There’s a battle of epic proportions raging between an increasingly paranoid establishment and a stubbornly independent digital world. Like all wars it started with skirmishes. These were about the interpretation of the various clauses of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 and the manner in which the establishment was implementing it at the ground level. IT Act 2000 was widely considered to be a balanced and an empowering piece of legislation necessary to bring about a certain form and structure to the rapidly evolving digital world. Detractors, with some justification, perceived the 2008 amendment not only as an urge of the government to take greater control of the burgeoning economy of the digital world but also to mould the ‘transmission and distribution’ of content. The digital world was suspicious of the government’s intentions, but still gave it the benefit of doubt.

The government, however, did not stop there. Riding on the back of genuinely alarming intelligence reports about terrorists using emails, voice-over internet protocol (VOIP) services, Instant Messengers and almost impossible to track BlackBerry enterprise services, the government tightened the screws by notifying the Information Technology (Electronic Service Delivery) Rules, 2011 in April. That’s when a full fledged war started.



Net Loss: Kapil Sibal Declares War On Social Media – R Swaminathan, Observer Research Foundation - MediaNama

Excellent piece of article on the silent war which has been going on for 8 months now..

There was no one like a IAC group to voice when these IT acts were passed and I think the recent April amendment is just a start to a much larger censorship laws to follow

 

[Sushubh]

I think government representatives are pissed off at Sibal for opening a can of worms

Twitter / Shivam Vij: So Congressmen are refusin ...

 

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[naveen_reloaded]

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I think government representatives are pissed off at Sibal for opening a can of worms

Twitter / Shivam Vij: So Congressmen are refusin ...

I am loving Inline twitter content (auto-fetch)

 

[Sushubh]

Govt wanted 358 items removed from Google's services including YouTube, Orkut in Jan-Jun period — economictimes.indiatimes.com — Readability

apparently the only reason orkut is still online is to keep the indian government busy with their monitoring and reporting.

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‘Chilling’ Impact of India’s April Internet Rules — india.blogs.nytimes.com — Readability

The most stringent government push came in April, when the “Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011” were introduced. The rules require “intermediaries,” companies like Facebook, Google and Yahoo that provide the platform for users to comment and create their own content, to respond quickly if individuals complain that content is “disparaging” or “harassing,” among other complaints. If the complainant’s claim is valid, these companies must take down the offensive information within 36 hours.



In the study, a researcher working for C.I.S. sent notices to intermediaries in seven different situations, saying he found specific user-generated material offensive. In six of the seven, these companies took down the “offensive” material, and often removed more than was asked for. (In the seventh case, the researcher asked a shopping portal to remove information on one brand of diapers, saying they caused diaper rash and were therefore harmful to minors. The shopping site rejected the request, calling it frivolous.)

The study does not name the specific intermediaries involved, but they are understood to be the big social media and Internet companies that dominate the industry.

 

[Jignesh]

 

[Jaymin]

DNA had given a really superb irregular yesterday (7/12/2011). It showed a Google search with keywords "Kapil Sibal", and it was yielding funny results! If someone can search and post that......