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Journalism of Courage
The governments attempts to cleanse social networking websites of allegedly offensive content has triggered a political controversy,with several politicians taking their pictures off Twitter to protest the clampdown.
Leading the way was Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi,who took off his picture from his Twitter page Friday after tweeting that he was doing so to protest the crackdown on freedom of speech.
As a common man,I join the protest against crackdown on freedom of speech! Have changed my DP (display picture). Sabko Sanmati De Bhagwan, Modi tweeted. His protest went viral,and a number of his followers on Twitter following suit.
The profile pictures of Biju Janata Dal MP Jay Panda and RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav too went missing. Madhav took off his picture after Minister of State Harish Rawat said those who had darkened their Twitter photos were RSS followers. I am obviously an RSS man. I must therefore blacken my page, Madhav said.
The obvious intention of this government in blocking websites and Facebook/Twitter accounts of some persons is to intimidate genuine users of new media. The message being conveyed is that big brother is watching. The Congress has politicised the issue by harassing those opposed to its political ideology. The Twitter account of VHP leader Praveen Togadia was blocked even though he has not once tweeted anything objectionable about the Assam violence, Madhav said.
Ironically for the government,even the Twitter account of Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology Milind Deora became inaccessible on Friday,and had not been restored until late evening.
That forced Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to clarify that the governments intention was only to act against people who were spreading hate messages or rumours. We are not taking action against other accounts,be it on Facebook,Twitter or even on SMSes. There is no censorship at all, he said.
But this did not cut much ice. Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar termed the governments move as totally unimaginative and unprofessional.
While there is no arguing the fact that government has the power to take such steps to tackle law and order problems,the manner in which the clampdown has been done shows how unprepared the government is. Even though many MPs,including I,have time and again asked the government to be prepared for such cyber incursions,the government did nothing. And the shoddy response proves this, Chandrasekhar said.
Janlokpal,the Twitter handle of India Against Corruption,also replaced its profile picture with black space.
Attempts by the government and service providers to block accounts and access to some websites have also riled cyber law experts. Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society termed some items on the blocked list as being clear examples of over-censorship and potentially unlawful,even though he did not view this as being politically motivated.
It is also unclear if the government complied with the procedural requirements of the Rules under 69A of the Information Technology Act. It is a clear case of government going overboard,even though it had good intentions, Prakash said.
Information Technology expert and lawyer Pavan Duggal said while the government has the right to monitor the Internet as per law,it needs to do it in a transparent and accountable manner. The government has been caught napping. But I hope this would be a learning experience,as this is not going to be the last time somebody tries to spread cyber terror in India. There must be a proper response strategy if such things happen again, Duggal said.
