The furor over the censoring of the opinions on the social networking sites has been receiving a lot of opposition. I say, "opinions" is because, it is the voice of the people, a belief the people carry. People must have every right to express their beliefs and have the opportunity to voice it out. That's what our constitution terms as the Freedom of Speech.
The basis of this whole censorship issue that Mr. Kapil Sibal considered is weak. Just because some one put defamatory pictures of Mrs. Gandhi on a popular social networking site, cracking down on the rights of 100 million users just doesn't make sense. If that is the case, we must consider all politicians to be the goondas, and rowdies and thieves and rapists and murderers, because few of them actually are, aren't they? Where does that put Mr. Kapil Sibal?
Lets say, we did manage to implement the idea of the honorable minister of telecom. And say there is a team of a million people sitting across the world screening every thoughts, ideas, prayers, blessings, reviews, comments, news, phew... (There is is just lot more...), can he guarantee that this process, over a period of time will be bureaucracy free. One man's treasure is always another man's trash.
Then there is question of provocative ideas leading to religious violence being posted. How many instances have provocation over the social networking has taken place which has resulted in communal violence on the streets? And how many religious violence have taken place when there was no social networking? Get some data. Dear Mr. Sibal, the very idea of Social Networking is to bring people closer to one another, irrespective of their race, cast, creed, religion. And these sites have been doing a pretty neat job. There are communal and religious groups on these sites, and there are a few anti-social elements on these sites as well, and are responsible for such provocation and inflammatory posts and photographs, but there are more in number and proportion in real world. What is being done about that?
It seems like this is some sort of a vengeance over the Social Networking sites which has brought together us Indians and Indians abroad during the Anna Hazare's Anti Corruption movement which forced the government to a state of helplessness so that it could accept to consider the creation of the Jan Lokpal bill.
Not only India, but the people of the world need place to vent out their frustrations and disappointments about everything including the political events. What better place than the social media. Imagine if people start throbbing the streets with violence to voice their concerns, what would you do Mr. Sibal? Any agitation as long as it is in the virtual world, is still peaceful and reduces the chances of them coming down to the streets causing inconvenience to the law and order situation. During the Anti Corruption movement, the people did come to streets and the social media was the key enabler, but it has been peaceful and no violence of any kind was ever reported. On the other hand, there have been instances of effigy burning, garlanding politicians with chappallon ki mala, strikes for issues relating to the ever increasing hikes on fuel prices, and strikes for whole lot of other issues. Imagine them all happening in the virtual world, and if the government gives them a fair hearing to the voices on the social media, it would save a lot of trouble on the streets and may also make a lot of people happy and content.
Monitoring and controlling the internet is not a very practical solution, even if they were considered as threats. There are options to "Report Abuse", on these sites and the companies are pretty strict about them whenever any abuse is reported. Instead, it would be ideal to collaborate with the companies and spread awareness on the issues of misuse of the social media, educate people on the do's and don'ts and how the effects of misuse can hinder the image and growth of the country and disrupt the harmony, communal and other wise in the real world. Work with the social media companies and explore options to curb any thing that crosses the line of freedom of speech and the constitution of India. Educate the people that their liberties are not void of responsibility.
On the flip side, I am against the idea that social media companies, being located in the US as their HQ and following the policies of the US. They should realize that they are doing business in India and hence they must collaborate with the government of India, and adhere to the sensitivities of religiously diversified population of India.
0 comments:
Post a Comment