Brickbats, Bouquets & Backfeeds are welcome on prmadhura@yahoo.com
“Freedom is in peril. Defend it with all your might.” That was the slogan that was carried atop the masthead of National Herald, the newspaper that Jawaharlal Nehru founded in 1938 (it shut shop in 2008).
The slogan was written in Nehru’s elegant hand and bespoke the first Prime Minister’s commitment to free speech.
Today, that freedom is imperilled by the Internet Control Rules introduced recently with relative despatch.
These rules are omnibus. They are inadequately defined. Where the Internet is concerned, they have the potential to turn India into a police state, no freer than China. And we had thought that the rise of the Internet marked the break of a new dawn of freedom.
Particularly pernicious are the intermediaries’ liability rules. Intermediaries are the purveyors of third-party content on the Internet and include Internet Service Providers (ISPs), portals of all kinds, social networks, search engines, blogging platforms and Web-hosting service providers.
According to the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, notified under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, intermediaries enjoy exemption from liability for the third-party content they host provided they observe due diligence. And how are they to exercise due diligence?
That is where the problems arise.
Intermediaries, for instance, have to ensure that users do not put out content that, among other things, “is grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, libellous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever;
*harm minors in any way;
*infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights;
*threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence or prevents investigation of any offence or is insulting any other nation”.
*harm minors in any way;
*infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights;
*threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence or prevents investigation of any offence or is insulting any other nation”.
The specification could not be more sweeping and catch-all. Anything could be described as “grossly harmful”, “harassing”, “blasphemous”, “defamatory”, “ethnically objectionable” or “disparaging”.
For instance, the Internet could be happy hunting grounds for those who today object to every other commercial film on the ground that it hurts their sensitivities. Harsh criticism of the state of affairs in any part of the country could be interpreted as threatening public order. Criticism of the regime or policies with any foreign country could be described as harmful of friendly relations with that country.
The list could go on.
At this rate, bloggers like me would have to face multiple charges for expressing our views, everyday!
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