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Facebook Tells India It Won't Help Censor the Web
An anonymous reader writes "Indian Communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal yesterday announced a proposal to have technology companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Twitter pre-screen user generated content so that community sentiments are not hurt. Social media platforms are being asked to censor whatever politicians deem objectionable and too offensive for the Internet. Sibal called a news conference when the story broke, and following it, Facebook responded to say that it can't help in the effort."
Of course not, censorship would hurt their business model. People need to share their dirt to sell it!
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Facebook doesn't want to censor: they want free flow of as much information as possible. The more that's out there, the more data they have to mine and sell.
It's in Facebook's best interest to say no anyway (since censoring comments would only make people want to leave and thus would reduce revenue at the additional cost of developer time), and by doing so they appear to be heroic. This was perhaps the easiest press release ever.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I think it's interesting to see India asking for IT help.
If you want to filter something, block his campaign ads when it's time for re-election.
would like to be in control of ALL the information you have available. the internet is a thorn in government's sides, right now the benefits of the internet outweighs the liabilities and when that changes you can bet the US Gov will pull the plugs (like shutting down ICANN's root servers) among other things it wont kill it completely but it will kill most of it and joe and jane sixpack wont be going to infowars.com or whatever flavor of underground news and tinfoil hattery they like...
war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Didn't Mr. Sibal suggest that they will use humans to screen the contents?
Here's my suggestion: tie him down to a chair and pry open his eyelids clockwatch orange style, and then have him screen youtube comments for 8 hours.
Wow, everyone's really quick to jump on them and claim it's because they have profit motive in having more data. I won't deny that, but there are other factors that are possibly more important.
Human-scanning every single message would be nearly impossible. Even if they managed to handle the staffing problem, they couldn't afford it. And even if they could afford it, there's the ethical issues it presents.
There are plenty of other reasons for them to decline.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
"fuck the pakis" certainly would not be on India's list of banned sentiments.