Most of the popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google plus, Orkut etc. have already self-regulating mechanism in place and they take action whenever any offensive or illegal material is brought to their notice. For instance, in facebook, you can report abuse by selecting the “Report” link located near photos, videos, notes or other content you find offensive or inappropriate. From there, you can choose from a set of categories to classify the content. These categories change depending on what type of content you’re reporting, but they let you know what we consider abusive and help our user operations team process reports even faster. So, I don’t think there is any need to interfere and censor social sites.
The real motive of this censorship is to delete all the anti-Sonia and anti-Government contents from the internet. The internet is flooded with anti-Sonia articles and essays. Millions of Indians have expressed their emotions against the corrupt Congress Government that does not listen to them. We can very well understand Mr Sibal’s pain over malicious portrayal of his party’s ‘sacred’ icons, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, on social networks.
If the Indian Government implement internet censorship then there would be no Arab Spring, no Anna Hazare, no free talk. The freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution would remain only on paper. Kapil Sibal understands that the Anna Hazare movement gained
momentum because of social network sites when people across the country and the world connected with the cause of anti-corruption. It is obvious that Mr Sibal wants to please his bosses in the Congress. But it will not work. He has already lost credibility.
Political parties like BJP, which is anti Congress has huge fan following on internet. Even civil society groups which are against Congress policies are enjoying great support on social networks.
This is nothing but a plan to curb the voice of common people on internet. Now the time has come to rise up and raise our voice against the censorship of internet before it’s too late and the online censorship becomes some law.