Social networking websites asked to screen content by February 6 in India

You'll be embarrassed by their banality.

We're talking of things like photographs of Sonia Gandhi with a moustache drawn on her to photographs of nude women with Sonia's face superimposed.

The temptation here to go on a tirade against a party or the government is way too overwhelming (it is a private criminal case), but I would urge everyone to take a different view of this. The laws and the legal system in India are ill-equipped and not adequately trained to understand the nuances of the digital world. I had a first-hand experience of this a few years ago at my last job when we were dragged into an investigation that was looking into defamatory comments posted against a particular individual.

We had to work with the cyber crime cell to help them find what they were looking for and found the officers to be well-meaning and nice people. The only downside was the training given to them, which was next to non-existent. We eventually wound up helping them out a lot and also worked with them to help them get a better understanding of the issue at hand. I actually felt quite bad for them. The office we went to had a handful of ancient PCs of which only one was connected to the internet - a far cry from anything that you'd expect.

The same thing applies to courts, judgements are often handed out without a good understanding of the digital world. A judge when shown awful content will almost every time order its removal, there is hardly anything surprising about it.

This certainly won't be the last word on this, but we have a long road ahead increasing awareness and training of both the legal system and enforcement. By the time we finally get there, there will be a lot of mistakes arising from totally unintended consequences, but I am confident that we'll eventually get it right.

This is coming from the very highest levels of government. So your logic about ill-equipped offices or inadequate training does not apply to them. They are billionaires many time over. The minister who is the brain behind this legislation is one of highest paid lawyers in India so you can't assume that he is not able to comprehend the digital laws and their consequences. They are taking these measures to stifle the voice of middle class which is most vociferous against corruption. So your attempt to generate needless sympathy for them is unfortunately not grounded in reality.

"I say: So what? As long as it does not promote hurting people, or people are forced to watch it, it shouldn't matter."

It matters a lot in India. To understand the real problem, you have to understand the social problems in India (and Asia to some extent). Even though literacy rate is increasing, religious fanaticism is not decreasing. It is very common to find highly educated people talking bad about religions they don't believe in. A small post derogating some religion is sufficient for silly extremist groups and crappy media (the news website ibnlive is a good example) to make a big issue. Extremist groups bash these posts to give themselves publicity. For media, it is all about ratings and advertisement so they keep broadcasting news about such posts all day. Both these groups conveniently shut their eyes on the religious polarization caused by their actions. This hurts the society and it hurts the country economically.

I also don't believe in hindering free speech. But when I see the social problems around me, I feel we will be better of with some regulations.

Its always hard to protect free speech. But this requires creative solutions, and censorship is not one of them.