This past week has seen the internet ablaze with the topics mentioned above. The Govts across the world are taking unprecedented measures to regulate the Internet to protect the people from piracy, identity theft and so on.. IMO this is a hogwash, it has more to do with restricting users from content which the Govt deems unsuitable rather than have anything to do with something as mundane as protecting the people.
US is trying to push through a bill in Congress called the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) more about the bill can be found on Wikipedia. Though the bill says it's aimed at protecting intelletual property and stopping online piracy, the spectrum is too broad to be defined. There are a lot of questions which needs to be answered and it is an attempt at censoring the internet and the users.
Wikipedia blacked out it's website for day in protest against this bill on Jan 18th. Almost all the content in Wikipedia is contributed by the users and is freely available for use. If SOPA becomes a law, it will first of all block wikipedia, the contents will not be free anymore and Wikipedia and the authors contributing to it will become eligible for prosecution under the law if anybody contends that the content violates any IP. The world will lose it's right to free information as the govt will start exerting more control on what information reaches the public and what information can be shared. Also this will make any form of protest difficult as the servers and the content will be entirely under the regulatory control and what the regulator/govt does not like will not be release. This means movements like Arab Spring will become almost impossible. Let's not forget the bulk of the information and activism for the Arab Freedom Movement was organized and co-ordinated through the internet and freely available information. Now when the govt starts poking it's nose in this area,what's to stop it from banning such information and viola "No Freedom Movement".
Agreed there is a lot of piracy happening, a lot of content which is stolen, a lot of people are impacted economically, socially and that it is necessary to address them, but this is not the way and definately not viable at all. If the means for stopping piracy involves restriction the freedom to speech and expression , then I say let the piracy continue. That the people governing the "Land of the Brave & the Home of the Free" are trying to trod on the same freedom granted by the Constitution is appalling and rings a death knell in the hearts of freedom lovers all over the world it is also sets a dangerous precedent to the countries trying to deal with the rise in free opinion.
India is also taking the censorship line with social networking sites like G+, FB, Twitter. Asking these sites to screen their content for alleged derogatory, defamatory and inflammatory content about religious figures and Indian leaders. The key here is Indian leaders or rather the Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi. Indian IT minister Kapil Sibal is trying to censor content in the name of religious sentiments, it is curious this stand came around when Sibal was made aware of certain degradatory comments made against Sonia & Rahul Gandhi on social networking website. That the govt has made a blatant attempt to censor the freedom of speech thru social media is slap in the face of Indian Democracy.
This just proves that govt. world over want to people to be sheep following the dikats of the govts, leading their lives as per what the govts decide rather than question them and the decide based on multiple opinions. The current attempts show that the Govts want it's citizens to hear only their voice and no other, thus reducing dissent.
This brings to mind the Latin quote "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" "Who will guard the guardians" in the current context it sounds rather fitting.
To learn more about SOPA Blackout: http://sopablackout.org/
People have created pages in FB to protest against the Indian Govt. :http://www.facebook.com/stopinternetcensorshipinindia?sk=app_2309869772
Comments
Post a Comment