TE - BAY

Hey Frnds,

I know everyone must be cursing about the latest act of UPA Government on Social Networking. but don't worry they have just asked the companies to block the sensored contents in any form(images or text). Let me remind you this is not Pakistan or China where our government will do anything. Its largest Democratic nation and we the public is the owner. But also remember being public we also don't have right to say anything or upload any image which may cause direct or indirect problem to anyone. One more thing that when we are uploading any such image which is sensored or contain hate speech toward anyone, its a voilation of cyber law. Even if you upload any image of some bollywood star or anyone that is also a crime and voilation of copyrights.

I know what India is going through is a tough time, where on one side public is fighting from corruption and our Defence & Para-military forces from external & internal threats. But we don't have to loose our temper. On the other hand opposition parties are taking advantages. Abusing or voilence is not the right way, at-least right now & will never be tolerated against against Government. Yes, I'm also fed-up of this government, I also want to protest and throw this goverment out of power. So lets do it in a civilized way.
Here is report on Meeting of Mr. Sibbal with CEO's of various social networking sites.
Please read it and tell me(comment) what you feel over this issue.


Indian government has told social networking giants Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to remove material that might "offend Indian sensibilities". Top officials from the Indian units of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook are meeting with Kapil Sibal, India’s acting telecommunications minister, on Monday afternoon to discuss the issue, say two executives of Internet companies. The executives asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media on the issue.

Mr. Sibal’s office confirmed that he would meet with Internet service providers Monday but did not provide more information about the content of the meeting. About six weeks ago, Mr. Sibal called legal representatives from the top Internet service providers and Facebook into his New Delhi office, said one of the executives who was briefed on the meeting. 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.

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 before it is posted. The executives said representatives from these companies will tell Mr. Sibal at the meeting on Monday that his demand is impossible, given the volume of user-generated content coming from India, and that they cannot be responsible for determining what is and isn’t defamatory or disparaging.

“If there’s a law and there’s a court order, we can follow up on it,” said an executive from one of the companies attending the meeting. But these companies can’t be in the business of deciding what is and isn’t legal to post, he said.

Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft did not respond immediately to calls for comment, and a Google spokeswoman said the company had no comment on the issue. Facebook said earlier this year it has more than 25 million users in India. Google has over 100 million Internet users in India. The demand is the Indian government’s latest attempt to monitor and control electronic information. In April, the ministry issued rules demanding Internet service providers delete information posted on Web sites that officials or private citizens deemed disparaging or harassing.

The Indian government also plans to set up its own unit to monitor information posted on Web sites and social media sites, executives said, which will report to Gulshan Rai, the director general of India’s cyber-security monitor.

Some Indian cities like Mumbai have already set up special units to monitor Internet sites like Facebook and Orkut, the social networking site operated by Google, for content considered disparaging or obscene.

Now lets see what these social network authorities do in this case......