The Union government in India has granted sanctions to prosecute 21 social networking sites which include Facebook and Google. It was seen as a “blatant effort to coerce social media companies to carry out self-censorship.”
The Indian government has claimed that there is enough evidence to proceed with prosecution. Offences include promoting hostility between different groups of people in India and that these acts were “prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony” as well as “prejudicial to national integration.”
Free speech is guaranteed in India through its Constitution however it must be within the bounds of several criteria: public order, decency, security of the state, must not promote obscenity, contempt of court, incitement to offence, defamation, or any activity that questions the sovereignty and integrity of India and may possibly reduce friendly relations of India to other states.
But even with these efforts, experts believe that it can be impossible to sanction the Internet let alone social networking sites like Google and Facebook. These are merely networking platforms that people use to connect with each other people and misuse is often the result.
But then again, some agree that self-censorship must be carried actively by social media companies. This move of course is not new. Way back December 2011, the Indian government thought of ways to censor the Internet; then acting communications minister Kapil Sibal met with officials from Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft to impose self censorship.
In October 2009, the Indian government passed a law that requires web company executive to comply with take-down request from the government. Failure to comply will be dealt with a fine and seven years of imprisonment. Other rules from Sibal’s ministry were released in April of that year and it was all about web companies to delete their content that politician and citizens object to within 36 hours.
Photo credit: IsaacMao
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