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

Sites like Facebook, Google, and even my own photography community Fotoblur were developed in the US, where freedom of speech is tolerated. Remember, freedom of speech is in place not to protect nice language, its there to protect the derogatory kind. We don't need rights to protect nice language. Think about it. So it follows then that technology developed under that platform of thinking doesn't always translate well to ones which have different customs, religions, and laws. Unfortunately, we can not assume or expect that free and expressive ways of thinking are acceptable in other parts of the world.

For instance, Fotoblur publishes a magazine in which an Iranian photographer was published. Unfortunately we couldn't send him a copy because American companies can not ship to Iran. We worked out a deal where we'd ship him the issues to a friend in Canada, then he would deliver them on a trip he was making to Iran. It worried me a bit because I found out that the possession of material containing nudity was a jail-able offense in Iran (that magazine issue had a few artistic nudes in it). Lesson learned: Our publication did not translate well within Iranian cultural laws.

The question for me is where is the line drawn when it comes to objectionable material. Most sites have TOSs that restrict such material that is considered objectionable or offensive anyway. I'd also imagine that this type of content constitutes less than 0.01% of the material and is being blown out of proportion and shouldn't even be part of the public debate.

Regardless, rather than having each nation determine its own laws governing Internet Services I propose a global consortium be developed. Here is why: http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/cens3.html Try navigating through this mess is you wish to abide by international law when it comes to control over your content. Just not possible.

I think you are mixing up the cases here. The Sibal affair was the one from the government. If you read the linked story you'll find two cases - one civil and another criminal - which are behind the directives by the courts. The government is not a party to either case.

I don't have any sympathies for people who try to stifle the ability to express freely, but I also don't have any sympathies for misinformation and needless rabble rousing either.

As part of my work, I do interact and advise members/organizations of the legal framework and, trust me, there are a lot of good intentions there, but sadly that alone is not good enough and we wind up with lousy outcomes. This is the reason why I look unfavourably on a purely black and white view of these things.

The problem I have with it is that there are undoubtably young people working in the same systems, upholding the same values. It's easy to write it off as "old farts", when, in reality, it is entrenched power that is problematic. But that isn't a one-sentence comment that writes off a lot of work by older people (fwiw, I'm not yet 40) to make the world a better place for the youngen's.