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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."
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.
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.
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
Small Internet user base? Little country? Are we still discussing India?
There are more Indians online than British people. India is 6th. CIA world factbook (and that's from 2009, I wouldn't be surprised if India is now ahead of Germany. Most Germans who want to be online are; that's not the case for India.)
Let's have some respect for the world's largest democracy, please.