Controlling ‘blogosphere’ amounts to blatant censorship
12 Mar 2011
What is with the mandarins in Delhi that when it comes to the digital world they are all only to ready to regulate, monitor and control content? This happens even as traditional print and electronic media still are allowed to be 'self regulating', and 'paid news' given a free run. After all, many of them have their own blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter handles.
By now it is common sense that in the internet, mobile and social media world everyone is a reader, viewer and publisher. The proliferating blogger community has suddenly given power to anyone with an email ID and an ability to put down words on a screen to become both an electronic ''publisher'' and ''distributor'' at the same time!
The interaction between ''receiving'' data and ''publishing'' it is where the core of the law and its interpretation should focus at this point. What is clear is that each side has its rights; the online publisher has freedom of expression and the receiver or public has the right to be safe and secure from harm in his electronic space.
Situations which could fall under a similar dilemma in the real world are where a newspaper editor or publisher cannot be quite held directly responsible, under existing legal jurisprudence, if their classifieds section carries fairly 'explicit' ads of massage parlours or escort and dating services and other 'objectionable' material.
Similarly in the digital or electronic world, if users send 'objectionable' text, voice or multimedia material over the net, mobile phone, telephone lines, then can the local telephone company, internet service provider or spectrum licensees or blog site or website be held directly responsible? In such cases, the spirit and principle of section 79 of the IT Act ought to kick in and restrict the direct liability of the service provider or intermediary.
Provisions of law that attempt to give one side or the other an unreasonable burden in conducting its business are doomed to failure.
Certain definitions and provisions of the Cyber Act 2000, in their current form, are clearly limiting or burdensome. Over-enthusiastic or inadequate use and interpretation of sections 67 and 79 of the IT Act could have a bearing on direct responsibility and liability issues affecting evolving interactive service intermediaries such as web logs, search engines, news hopper services, mobile value-added service providers, and even mobile virtual network operators.
Notwithstanding the ambiguity of privacy laws in general in India - as applicable under Article 21 of the Constitution - the point is that cyber laws must not hint at censorship or impinge on the basic right of speech and expression. They may regulate the 'labelling' on the ''packaging'', but never the content.
