I think this clearly shows that India need to work more on it's infrastructure and education and awareness.. It is easy to blame on something like Facebook, Twitter or Google.. These are superb tools and like everything can be used or mis-used. We know for sure that all these tools have been greatly used in Arab-spring. There most of the population really used it for their advantage.
Now here in India, we are seeing reverse. These graphics and messages floating are creating reverse impact.. they are meant to be creating hatred and anger among different sects of the population. However, these are just inert messages or images.. Interpretation of these messages and images is up to human brain. How they interpret depends upon the environment, education, social values and trust system among fellow human and rest of the system. If the trust level is so low, then any image or message can inflame any kind of riot.. it doesn't need these social media sites.. it is not that these kind of things didn't happened earlier.. people used paper or print media to do that in past.. did we stop using paper or print media?
This is totally ridiculous.. Government or rather than that, population of India needs to first introspect and find out root cause of these kind of things. Root cause is lack of education, lack of trust on government or police for that matter.. off course rampant corruption at all levels tops it up... Going after these social media sites is simple distraction from core fundamental issue..
Social sites squeezed in India
Leaders pressure Web companies to restrict hate speech
By Vikas Bajaj
New York Times
MUMBAI, India — The Indian government’s efforts to stem a weeklong panic among some ethnic minorities has again put it at odds with Internet companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter.
Officials in New Delhi, who have had disagreements with the companies over restrictions on free speech, say the sites are not responding quickly enough to their requests to delete and trace the origins of doctored photos and incendiary posts aimed at people from northeastern India. After receiving threats online and on their phones, tens of thousands of students and migrants from the northeast have left cities like Bangalore, Pune and Chennai in the last week.
The government has blocked 245 Web pages since Friday, but still many sites are said to contain fabricated images of violence against Muslims in the northeast and in neighboring Myanmar meant to incite Muslims in cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai to attack people from the northeast. India also restricted cellphone users to five text messages a day each for 15 days in an effort to limit the spread of rumors.
Officials from Google and industry associations said they were cooperating fully with the authorities. Some industry executives and analysts added that some requests had not been heeded because they were overly broad or violated internal policies and the rights of users.
The government, used to exerting significant control over media like newspapers, films and television, has in recent months been frustrated in its effort to extend similar and greater regulations to websites, most of which are based in the United States. Late last year, an Indian minister tried to get social media sites to prescreen content created by their users before it was posted. The companies refused and the attempt failed under withering public criticism.
While just 100 million of India’s 1.2 billion people use the Internet regularly, the numbers are growing fast among people younger than 25, who make up about half the country’s population.
Sunil Abraham, an analyst who has closely followed India’s battles with Internet companies, said last week’s effort to tackle hate speech was justified but poorly managed. He said the first directive from the government was impractically broad, asking all Internet “intermediaries” — a category that includes small cybercafes, Internet service providers and companies like Google and Facebook — to disable all content that was “inflammatory, hateful and inciting violence.”
Ministers have blamed groups in Pakistan, a neighbor with which India has tense relations, for creating and uploading many of the hateful pages and doctored images.
Now here in India, we are seeing reverse. These graphics and messages floating are creating reverse impact.. they are meant to be creating hatred and anger among different sects of the population. However, these are just inert messages or images.. Interpretation of these messages and images is up to human brain. How they interpret depends upon the environment, education, social values and trust system among fellow human and rest of the system. If the trust level is so low, then any image or message can inflame any kind of riot.. it doesn't need these social media sites.. it is not that these kind of things didn't happened earlier.. people used paper or print media to do that in past.. did we stop using paper or print media?
This is totally ridiculous.. Government or rather than that, population of India needs to first introspect and find out root cause of these kind of things. Root cause is lack of education, lack of trust on government or police for that matter.. off course rampant corruption at all levels tops it up... Going after these social media sites is simple distraction from core fundamental issue..
Social sites squeezed in India
Leaders pressure Web companies to restrict hate speech
By Vikas Bajaj
New York Times
MUMBAI, India — The Indian government’s efforts to stem a weeklong panic among some ethnic minorities has again put it at odds with Internet companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter.
Officials in New Delhi, who have had disagreements with the companies over restrictions on free speech, say the sites are not responding quickly enough to their requests to delete and trace the origins of doctored photos and incendiary posts aimed at people from northeastern India. After receiving threats online and on their phones, tens of thousands of students and migrants from the northeast have left cities like Bangalore, Pune and Chennai in the last week.
The government has blocked 245 Web pages since Friday, but still many sites are said to contain fabricated images of violence against Muslims in the northeast and in neighboring Myanmar meant to incite Muslims in cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai to attack people from the northeast. India also restricted cellphone users to five text messages a day each for 15 days in an effort to limit the spread of rumors.
Officials from Google and industry associations said they were cooperating fully with the authorities. Some industry executives and analysts added that some requests had not been heeded because they were overly broad or violated internal policies and the rights of users.
The government, used to exerting significant control over media like newspapers, films and television, has in recent months been frustrated in its effort to extend similar and greater regulations to websites, most of which are based in the United States. Late last year, an Indian minister tried to get social media sites to prescreen content created by their users before it was posted. The companies refused and the attempt failed under withering public criticism.
While just 100 million of India’s 1.2 billion people use the Internet regularly, the numbers are growing fast among people younger than 25, who make up about half the country’s population.
Sunil Abraham, an analyst who has closely followed India’s battles with Internet companies, said last week’s effort to tackle hate speech was justified but poorly managed. He said the first directive from the government was impractically broad, asking all Internet “intermediaries” — a category that includes small cybercafes, Internet service providers and companies like Google and Facebook — to disable all content that was “inflammatory, hateful and inciting violence.”
Ministers have blamed groups in Pakistan, a neighbor with which India has tense relations, for creating and uploading many of the hateful pages and doctored images.
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