Some excerpts from the text of an article in the New York Times about growing restrictions on free speech in India.
Free speech advocates and Internet users are protesting new Indian regulations restricting Web content that, among other things, can be considered 'disparaging,' 'harassing,' 'blasphemous' or 'hateful.'
The new rules, quietly issued by the country’s Department of Information Technology earlier this month and only now attracting attention, allow officials and private citizens to demand that Internet sites and service providers remove content they consider objectionable on the basis of a long list of criteria.
Critics of the new rules say the restrictions could severely curtail debate and discussion on the Internet, whose use has been growing fast in India.
The list of objectionable content is sweeping and includes anything that “threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states or public order.”
The rules highlight the ambivalence with which Indian officials have long treated freedom of expression. The country’s constitution allows “reasonable restrictions” on free speech but lawmakers have periodically stretched that definition to ban books, movies and other material about sensitive subjects like sex, politics and religion.
The new Internet rules go further than existing Indian laws and restrictions, said Sunil Abraham, the executive director for the Center for Internet and Society. The rules require Internet “intermediaries” — an all-encompassing group that includes sites like YouTube and Facebook and companies that host Web sites or provide Internet connections — to respond to any demand to take down offensive content within 36 hours. The rules do not provide a way for content producers to defend their work or appeal a decision to take content down.
An official for the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, an advocacy group based in New Delhi, said on Wednesday that it was considering a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the new rules.
Footnotes:
A complete write-up of the article can be accessed via this link on the NY Times website. The aforementioned post contains certain parts of the original publication, without amendment.
Full credits to Vikas Bajaj, correspondent for The New York Times in Mumbai, and author of this article.
Free speech advocates and Internet users are protesting new Indian regulations restricting Web content that, among other things, can be considered 'disparaging,' 'harassing,' 'blasphemous' or 'hateful.'
The new rules, quietly issued by the country’s Department of Information Technology earlier this month and only now attracting attention, allow officials and private citizens to demand that Internet sites and service providers remove content they consider objectionable on the basis of a long list of criteria.
Critics of the new rules say the restrictions could severely curtail debate and discussion on the Internet, whose use has been growing fast in India.
The list of objectionable content is sweeping and includes anything that “threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states or public order.”
The rules highlight the ambivalence with which Indian officials have long treated freedom of expression. The country’s constitution allows “reasonable restrictions” on free speech but lawmakers have periodically stretched that definition to ban books, movies and other material about sensitive subjects like sex, politics and religion.
The new Internet rules go further than existing Indian laws and restrictions, said Sunil Abraham, the executive director for the Center for Internet and Society. The rules require Internet “intermediaries” — an all-encompassing group that includes sites like YouTube and Facebook and companies that host Web sites or provide Internet connections — to respond to any demand to take down offensive content within 36 hours. The rules do not provide a way for content producers to defend their work or appeal a decision to take content down.
An official for the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, an advocacy group based in New Delhi, said on Wednesday that it was considering a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the new rules.
Footnotes:
A complete write-up of the article can be accessed via this link on the NY Times website. The aforementioned post contains certain parts of the original publication, without amendment.
Full credits to Vikas Bajaj, correspondent for The New York Times in Mumbai, and author of this article.
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