India OKs Censoring Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo

An anonymous reader writes "An Indian court given the green light for the prosecution of '21 social networking sites.' The list features 10 foreign-based companies, and could affect websites provided by Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and YouTube. The recent development is part of an ongoing argument between the companies and India over whether content should be regulated (read: censored) in the country. The approval was actually made on December 23, 2011, but was only revealed yesterday. India warned these websites it can block them just like China can."

Comments

Let them try

[arcite]

Look, unless they filter and censor every single email, text, data stream ect... it is a complete lost cause. This will just spur innovation in finding methods to avoid the censors such as seen in China.

Re:Let them try

[TheReaperD]

In addition, India doesn't have a large military policing the policies of the government and courts. Take away search and social media sites and there'd be a revolt by their own citizens.

Re:Let them try

[redmid17]

They could try to create their own intranet. You really think that all the international companies with outsourced work in India are gonna like that? If the Indian government tried that, it would tank their economy.

Re:Let them try

[angiasaa]

Nah, that would not work. For one thing, Indians have had free rein over their Facebook, Google and twitter accounts since the very beginning. The citizenry will find it way too hard to make the shift from a global to a local platform.

Furthermore, we Indians are used to being relatively uncensored at every turn. The moment we "realize" that the government is actively monitoring every tweet and every post, people will start withdrawing from the services offered.

We have a deep mistrust of our government. It is one thing to force the uneducated into censorship. But those of us who use the internet have at least a basic education, and we don't like the government meddling in any of our affairs. especially if we can't see a justification in it.

What irks many of us, is the fact that the government spends too little of our tax money in the right places. For instance, the roads are potholed, the water services are unreliable. Energy production has crawled into a hole and died. There is hunger and starvation all over the country. The middle and upper classes are the ones who are most impacted by the Governmental organizations. The Police are unreliable.

When an accident occurs, we fear reporting it to the cops because we know that if we do, we're the first to be taken in for questioning and the cops overstep their authority at every turn. You see a guy dying on the street, and passers by will stop just to mull around and stare. Everyone will complain that someone should do something, but no one will consider calling the authorities or helping the poor chap to a hospital because the helper becomes the hunted in the eyes of the authorities.

A friend of mine was put in the slammer for moving the victim of an accident. He was let free four days later because the court decided he was innocent, but he left with bruises and came down with a bad case of diarrhea. The cops actually beat the guy up during their "questioning for facts"! He was just trying to help an injured guy who ended up dying on the way to the hospital.

We love our country, but we hate deeply, those in power who're trying to run it because they don't appear to care for the public.

An alternative website, monitored/restricted or not, will hold even less water in such a country. They might be able to forcefully lock social networks out of the country, but they can't get people to use a government-controlled one.

Re:Let them try

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit! Look I've lived in both US and India (born there , now US citizen). Yes, US has issues, but there is no way you can compare India and US. I was born in poor class Indian family and if I was there, there was no way I would have gotten proper education and lived a decent life. If you have money in india, yes you can live a luxury life by bribing your way out (corruption is part of every day life there!). But if you want to make something of yourself from nothing, USA is still world apart (haven't lived in Europe so don't know much about it). But people who think there is not much difference between USA and India should go live there for few months. Yes, there is lots of drama in US news TV, but at the end of the day, even if you are poor there is respect to human life here. If you are not rich in India, you are pretty much worse than an animal. I'm not an american apologist, America has lots of flaws and issues, but there is no way you can compare it with India/China. Of course, that does not mean we all should be happy, there is always room for improvement. I do not ever want life in USA come anywhere closer to that of India (and I'm not talking about money, just respect for a human being).

Re:Let them try

[milkasing]

Freedom of speech in India is far weaker that what most Indians think it is. Prominent people are regularly arrested for exercising free speech, by making speeches, making politically incorrect statements, burning copies of the constitution, writing articles, etc)
To take a recent example, an opposition leader who played a part in exposing India's largest corruption case, has an arrest warrant out on him because he wrote this article in July Analysis: How to wipe out Islamic terror (the article seems to have been removed from the online version of the newspaper itself)
Censorship does not directly affect most people in India not because of free speech protections (which are very weak), but because the government is not strong enough to impose it on everyone.
The threat to internet freedom is not from and Indian version of the great wall of china, but from the possibility that, to protect their business opportunities in India, Internet companies will bend over to accommodate the govt of India. If history is any indication, the people in India will protest very loudly for a few days, then get distracted by the latest celebrity scandal . Ultimately they will adjust to one less freedom (the infamous attitude we term as "Chalta Hai") and forget about it.

Drastic measures

[Anonymous Coward]

To prevent public outrage caused by India's current cricket scores

Re:Their Country, Their Laws: Mind Your Own Busine

[ElBeano]

Sure, let Indians have their say, but don't expect us to shut up and mind our own business. The world is far too small for that now. I'm pretty sure many Indians don't agree with you.

Re:Their Country, Their Laws: Mind Your Own Busine

[methamorph]

Really, if you are not Indian, it doesn't concern you. Stay out of other people's internal affairs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came%E2%80%A6
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I was Protestant.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Re:Their Country, Their Laws: Mind Your Own Busine

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Really, if you are not Indian, it doesn't concern you. Stay out of other people's internal affairs.

If I saw my neigbour abusing his wife, I'd probably call the police and not claim that it's "someone else's internal affair". If there are people there in India who suffer for some reason, you can't expect me to feel indifferent.

Re:Their Country, Their Laws: Mind Your Own Busine

[sanman2]

Anonymous Coward wrote:

"It's crazy that slashdot and other people have some notion of western free speech that is universal and ingrained in human nature. Why is it so strange that other people in other places might have a different idea than you about censorship? Really, if you are not Indian, it doesn't concern you. Stay out of other people's internal affairs."

I'm Indian - who the hell are you to speak for all of us, and tell others not to comment? Anyone can comment on anything they like. It's called Freedom, and you seem to be ignorant of the concept. You wouldn't happen to be a Supreme Court Justice, would you? Why don't you post under your real name, instead of as an Anonymous Coward?

In police states like Pakistan and China, the courts are used to harass and suppress political opponents. Now you'd like that to happen in India, too. And you're defending this by manufacturing some kind of pretext based on cultural differences?

Get stuffed and get lost.