India threatens to block Google, Facebook

Delhi court warns portals they face ban if they do not remove 'offensive' content from pages By Nirmala Ganapathy Saturday, 14 Jan, ST

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has warned Facebook and Google that their websites could be blocked if they fail to check and remove 'offensive' material from their pages, raising renewed concerns about censorship in the world's largest democracy. Delhi High Court judge Suresh Kait said Facebook and Google must have a mechanism to filter objectionable material, otherwise India may ban all such websites, 'like in China'. The judge made his comments after hearing petitions filed by Facebook India and Google India against a summons for them and several other local and international Internet companies to appear in a trial court for allegedly carrying offensive material. The trial court issued the summons after a complaint by journalist Vinay Rai, editor of the Urdu newspaper Akbari, about offensive and inflammatory religious content on websites. In all, 21 local and international websites were summoned to appear in court. In its defence, Google India said it was impossible to check all content for undesirable elements. The High Court hearing will continue on Monday. Despite the ongoing hearing, however, the Indian government yesterday gave the green light for action against 21 firms in the lower court, raising further concerns about a move towards censorship. Freedom of speech is prized in India, but discomfort has been growing over the unregulated nature of the Internet, with the government locked in a stand-off with leading Web firms on regulating content after morphed pictures of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared on the Internet. The saga over regulation of the Internet began last month, after Communications Minister Kapil Sibal threatened action against major Internet companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook for ignoring his pleas to remove 'blasphemous' and 'derogatory' comments and images deemed offensive to religious groups and political leaders on their websites. He suggested that the websites, including Facebook and Google, pre-screen content, but this was met with strong criticism from netizens and others. In response, Facebook, which has 28 million users in India, said that it had policies in place to allow people to report abusive content and would remove content that violated its terms. It also said it understood the 'government's interest in minimising the amount of abusive content available online'. Mr Rai, the journalist who kick-started the recent case, told The Straits Times: 'My plea is that the websites should screen content that hurts religious sentiment or inflames passions. 'Right now, Uttar Pradesh elections are taking place; it is a volatile situation. When the media follows rules, why can't the Internet too have rules?' he asked.

The Uttar Pradesh elections, widely seen as a barometer of whether the ruling Congress party can hold on to power in the country, take place next month, and heated campaigning is in full swing now. Internet users and publishers have questioned the need for regulations to govern what is said online, and insist that any move to do so amounts to censorship. 'This is possibly going to be a critical year for the Internet industry in India. The larger picture is the way the executive and judiciary reacted to the Internet; it seems there is a move to ensure some amount of control over what happens on the Internet,' said Mr Nikhil Pahwa, editor and publisher of Medianama, a website that tracks digital and media business. India has more than 100 million Internet users in a population of 1.2 billion. The government expects this figure to hit 600 million by 2016. gnirmala@sph.com.sg