Yet another brainless move from the Congress party.
I hope Facebook, Google and Microsoft stand up and refuse to cooperate with the government.
India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content
#22Freedom of speech was the one advantage we had over other developing countries. I guess the Indian Gov was scared by the support the anti corruption movement got online.
Re: India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content
#23I'd like it if the companies asked to do this just pulled out of the country altogether. "Can't deal with the fundamental nature of the internet? No internet, then." It's needlessly vindictive on my part, but we've seen this story play out again and again. That's not how it works!
The problem with what you suggest (ignoring the vindictiveness), is that the people pushing for these asinine rules would benefit from the consequences of the loss of the internet while the masses would instead be harmed.
What I'd like to see is thorough background investigations of the people who are pushing for these stupid laws be made very very public, such that they are properly exposed as frauds and sycophants.
Re: India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content
#24Just. Wow. Mind boggling amounts of stupidity. "In the second meeting with the same executives in late November, Mr. Sibal told them that he expected them to use human beings to screen content, not technology, the executive said. The three executives said Mr. Sibal has told these companies that he expects them to set up a proactive prescreening system, with staffers looking for objectionable content and deleting it b…
It is funny how much people who don't contribute to the world think they get to tell other people what to do.
Lamar Smith, one of the sponsors of SOPA, told Google something similar. That it should be possible for Google to hire some high-school kids to keep piracy under control on their search engine.
Re: India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content
#25Would Google pull out of India because of this?
Re: India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content
#26Ok, I will play the devil's advocate here because someone has to. This has been going on since the pre-internet era. India unlike the US and like the UK doesn't have unlimited free speech and have fairly strong defamation and libel laws. This was a rich man's problem because how would you defame someone unless you have access to printing press or can go on radio and television. The internet changed all that. The government doesn't want it to change (for obvious reasons), hence all this hoopla.
Of course the free speech will win because it's almost impossible to censor the internet but the people in power will not go down without a fight.
Re: India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content
#27[deleted]
Re: India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content
#28Sibal is an idiot. Nobody in India takes him seriously. When he is not busy kissing sonia and rahul's ass, he talks from his own.
Re: India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content
#29This seems to be a fairly reoccurring theme - countries requesting internet sites to mass censor user content. Rarely though do they understand the scale of what that means. In the article, it stated that they wanted each item to be screened by a human. In the same way that I'll quote a client a much larger price if they want IE6 support, I often don't see why these companies don't just quote the country a price for the manpower required to do this. Kind of a, "Listen, pay us X per year to hire people to do this. Otherwise, it's simply impossible for us to do, and we'll fight your request in court til the end of time."
While I doubt any country would actually pay, I think it would serve to at least educate the politicians as to how much work censoring the internet actually requires.
Re: India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content
#30Ridiculous - "At the meeting, Mr. Sibal showed attendees a Facebook page that maligned the Congress Party’s president, Sonia Gandhi. “This is unacceptable,” he told attendees, the executive said, and he asked them to find a way to monitor what is posted on their sites." I'm not allowed to criticize my government in a public forum? Pardon my language, but this is fucking ridiculous.
Haa. Sonia Gandhi is not technically part of the government. But of course she is more powerful than the government.
What? She is an elected member of parliament. She is in every way a part of the government. Her role is not reflective of the power she yields but that is a separate issue.