Dear Mr. Sibal
I am not a lawyer. I am not in politics
nor am I in position of power like you. I am not a cyber specialist. I am just
a simple citizen, an educator who exhorts my students to think for themselves,
have an opinion and make sure that they express it.
My pet peeve over the last few days has
been you. First when I read this report in the India blog of New York
Times through, you guessed it right, a Facebook link, on the 5th of December 2011, http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/india-asks-google-facebook-others-to-screen-user-content/
I just couldn't believe what I was reading. (Our Indian media caught
up a little late!) I can understand if monarchies & autocracies demand
this. But a demand of this nature from a legal
luminary-cum-elected-representative (Aside:
– the board to which I belong to was under your care – and you
made so many radical changes there!) from the world’s largest democracy was far
too much to digest. And that too at a time when social media is playing a vital
role in engineering change in many countries globally; and when young and old
are equally members of such online communities that foster a sense of
camaraderie and oneness in them.
Why do you want Facebook, Google,
Microsoft and Yahoo to screen content? What kind of content are you particularly
keen on removing? Anything that is anti-government or anti-congress? With
millions of web users logging in and out, posting anything from tweets to
status updates, to photographs to videos, writing blogs to discussing in
webinars, how on earth are they going to monitor that? Besides, I fiercely
value my freedom of speech. As long as I am not using objectionable language
and graphics, why should anybody screen the content that I post?
I have three blogs. One question that I
had to answer before I started them was whether it has adult content. I could
set up one only when I said no to it. I write something disparaging about X / Y
/ Z, someone can always report me for abuse of the virtual space. Which means
that there is a built in mechanism for social media to purge unwanted / abusive
material, right? Why, then, did you want to be the super cop, ask for content
censorship of kinds & earn the ire of millions of Indians in the cyber
world? What is more shameful is that you are using this as a ruse and saying
that by indulging in such free exchange of views & ideas, religious
sensitivity will be exploited. Come on, Mr. Sibal, the internet is not a new
thing now. If such instances gave rise to communal riots, India would have been
in shreds by now. In fact, I have heard many a time that it is your tribe who
engender communal issues and use it effectively in vote bank politics.
I am aware
of the IT act. Section 66A is about punishment for sending offensive messages
through communication service, etc which is punishable with imprisonment for a
term which may extend to three years and with fine. Section 66E is for
violation against privacy; 66F deals with punishment for indulging in cyber
terrorism. Section 67 is about punishment for publishing or transmitting
obscene material. As a legal expert you know it all too well. And perhaps you
know the loopholes too. Is that why you can’t invoke these sections against
erring individuals? So how about plugging the loopholes instead of gagging us?
Mr. Sibal,
common people like me have tolerated nonsense for very many years. A new found
enthusiasm is coursing through our veins, thanks to our communities in the very
same social media that you have targeted. India will not go the China way! Do
read the writings on the wall!! Or you will not have any wall to write over!!!
An Awakened
Citizen
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