or justice system.. These is simply going back to stone ages.. all the progress made so far by humanity gets washed away by such news... All that freedom of press/Individuals is being compromised by these kind of acts.
I really can't understand what is wrong in people making fun of you?? You are you and will remain you!! nobody can change you instead of you yourself!!! You can stop say on Google.. there are thousands of other sites or search engines.. who all you will stop? by stopping them or I should say that trying to stop them, you are actually giving credibility to them. If any common sense prevails, you just ignore them and these things will be taken care by nature itself.. i.e. they will die themselves soon. By asking to stop such things you are just giving more fuel to such things and helping them withstand for more time. Wake up guys!!!! Respect is what you think of yourself.. not what you see from others!!
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_19906208?source=rss
That bill, now stalled in Congress, was aimed at stopping the spread of pirated copies of movies and other content by rogue websites overseas. Critics charged it would result in widespread censorship on the Internet.
“Every company in this situation,” said Wilson, “should take the most aggressive stand possible in resisting attempts for governments to censor them.”
In India, officials have been incensed by material insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and religious groups, including illustrations showing Singh and Gandhi in compromising positions and pigs running through Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.
“There is no question of any censorship,” Communications Minister Sachin Pilot said. “They all have to operate within the laws of the country. There must be responsible behavior on both sides.”
Anyone hurt by online content should be able to seek legal redress, he said. The government has warned it has evidence to prosecute the sites for offenses of “promoting enmity between classes and causing prejudice to national integration.”
According to press reports, Justice Suresh Kait told lawyers from Facebook India and Google last Thursday that “if a contraband is found in your house, it is your liability to take action against it. Like China, we can block all such websites” that don’t comply. “But let us not go to that situation.”
The government has asked the sites to set a voluntary framework to keep offensive material off the Internet. Facebook India submitted a compliance report to the court Monday, but it also joined Yahoo and Microsoft in questioning its inclusion in the case, saying no specific complaints had been presented against them, the PTI news agency reported.
Indian-born Silicon Valley entrepreneur Paul Singh said he has sympathy for the companies caught up in the court order and does not fault them for removing content.
“Google and Facebook are businesses first and they have to figure out how to make money and live within the legal parameters of the countries they operate in,” said Singh, CEO of Social-Nuggets, which analyzes social-media data. “They have responsibilities to their shareholders and they can’t afford to miss a very large market like India. I don’t fault Google for doing this.”
Prosecutors, who sued on behalf of a Muslim religious leader who accused companies of hosting pages that disparage Islam, said they would provide the companies with all relevant documents. The court gave the companies 15 more days to report back.
“This is certainly one of the most over reaching content takedowns we’ve seen by a foreign government,” said Jillian York with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. “Google often gets requests from Indian law enforcement agencies to take down YouTube videos and they decline the majority of the time. And while they do take down ones that violate India law, they only take them down for Indian users, so the rest of the world can still see it.
“Still,” said York, “over the past year, India seems to be really cracking down.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689 or follow him at Twitter.com/patmaymerc.
I really can't understand what is wrong in people making fun of you?? You are you and will remain you!! nobody can change you instead of you yourself!!! You can stop say on Google.. there are thousands of other sites or search engines.. who all you will stop? by stopping them or I should say that trying to stop them, you are actually giving credibility to them. If any common sense prevails, you just ignore them and these things will be taken care by nature itself.. i.e. they will die themselves soon. By asking to stop such things you are just giving more fuel to such things and helping them withstand for more time. Wake up guys!!!! Respect is what you think of yourself.. not what you see from others!!
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_19906208?source=rss
FREEDOM ON THE WEB
Google India bows to censors
New Delhi court orders Internet giants to pull ‘anti-social’ content
By Patrick May
pmay@mercurynews
In the latest case of a government tightening the reins on the online flow of ideas and information, Google India has agreed to take down Web pages considered offensive by Indian political and religious leaders, stoking censorship fears in the world’s largest democracy.
The removal order announced Monday resulted from a court case and follows weeks of aggressive government pressure on 22 Internet giants to remove photographs, videos or text considered “anti-religious” or “anti-social.” Warning that their sites might be blocked “like in China,” a New Delhi judge gave Facebook, Google and the other sites two weeks to present further plans for policing their networks, according to Indian press reports.
A Google representative, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Monday that while the company recently declined a request by a government minister to pre-screen content considered politically or religiously offensive, Google now faced a court order and had no choice but to follow it. Google would not release details about what content it had taken down or explain how it planned to respond to the government’s demand for a selfpolicing action plan.
Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo did not respond to requests for comment.
Internet activists in the United States pointed to India’s action as just the latest example of attempts by political and religious leaders around the world to clamp down on the free flow of ideas on the Internet.
“We need a really serious conversation about what companies like Google and Twitter owe the democratic society that created them to ensure that those values are exported as these companies do business around the world,” said Holmes Wilson, cofounder of Fight for the Future, the advocacy group that recently led the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.
Google India bows to censors
New Delhi court orders Internet giants to pull ‘anti-social’ content
By Patrick May
pmay@mercurynews
In the latest case of a government tightening the reins on the online flow of ideas and information, Google India has agreed to take down Web pages considered offensive by Indian political and religious leaders, stoking censorship fears in the world’s largest democracy.
The removal order announced Monday resulted from a court case and follows weeks of aggressive government pressure on 22 Internet giants to remove photographs, videos or text considered “anti-religious” or “anti-social.” Warning that their sites might be blocked “like in China,” a New Delhi judge gave Facebook, Google and the other sites two weeks to present further plans for policing their networks, according to Indian press reports.
A Google representative, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Monday that while the company recently declined a request by a government minister to pre-screen content considered politically or religiously offensive, Google now faced a court order and had no choice but to follow it. Google would not release details about what content it had taken down or explain how it planned to respond to the government’s demand for a selfpolicing action plan.
Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo did not respond to requests for comment.
Internet activists in the United States pointed to India’s action as just the latest example of attempts by political and religious leaders around the world to clamp down on the free flow of ideas on the Internet.
“We need a really serious conversation about what companies like Google and Twitter owe the democratic society that created them to ensure that those values are exported as these companies do business around the world,” said Holmes Wilson, cofounder of Fight for the Future, the advocacy group that recently led the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.
That bill, now stalled in Congress, was aimed at stopping the spread of pirated copies of movies and other content by rogue websites overseas. Critics charged it would result in widespread censorship on the Internet.
“Every company in this situation,” said Wilson, “should take the most aggressive stand possible in resisting attempts for governments to censor them.”
In India, officials have been incensed by material insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and religious groups, including illustrations showing Singh and Gandhi in compromising positions and pigs running through Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.
“There is no question of any censorship,” Communications Minister Sachin Pilot said. “They all have to operate within the laws of the country. There must be responsible behavior on both sides.”
Anyone hurt by online content should be able to seek legal redress, he said. The government has warned it has evidence to prosecute the sites for offenses of “promoting enmity between classes and causing prejudice to national integration.”
According to press reports, Justice Suresh Kait told lawyers from Facebook India and Google last Thursday that “if a contraband is found in your house, it is your liability to take action against it. Like China, we can block all such websites” that don’t comply. “But let us not go to that situation.”
The government has asked the sites to set a voluntary framework to keep offensive material off the Internet. Facebook India submitted a compliance report to the court Monday, but it also joined Yahoo and Microsoft in questioning its inclusion in the case, saying no specific complaints had been presented against them, the PTI news agency reported.
Indian-born Silicon Valley entrepreneur Paul Singh said he has sympathy for the companies caught up in the court order and does not fault them for removing content.
“Google and Facebook are businesses first and they have to figure out how to make money and live within the legal parameters of the countries they operate in,” said Singh, CEO of Social-Nuggets, which analyzes social-media data. “They have responsibilities to their shareholders and they can’t afford to miss a very large market like India. I don’t fault Google for doing this.”
Prosecutors, who sued on behalf of a Muslim religious leader who accused companies of hosting pages that disparage Islam, said they would provide the companies with all relevant documents. The court gave the companies 15 more days to report back.
“This is certainly one of the most over reaching content takedowns we’ve seen by a foreign government,” said Jillian York with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. “Google often gets requests from Indian law enforcement agencies to take down YouTube videos and they decline the majority of the time. And while they do take down ones that violate India law, they only take them down for Indian users, so the rest of the world can still see it.
“Still,” said York, “over the past year, India seems to be really cracking down.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689 or follow him at Twitter.com/patmaymerc.
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