Censoring The
internet
Editorial, The Hindu
21 October, 2003
The
blocking of an internet discussion group of a little-known Meghalaya
separatist organisation has exposed mindless official ineptitude. The
Government of India's directive to all internet service providers (ISPs)
in the country to block access to the Yahoo! discussion group of the
Hunniewrtep National Liberation Council of Meghalaya has had all the
negative consequences usually associated with bumbling censorship. It
has drawn attention to an obscure separatist outfit and simultaneously
blocked access to all discussion groups on Yahoo!. Ironically, at the
end of it all, those keen on knowing what the Meghalaya separatists
are discussing can very easily circumvent the Government ban.
The internet has
become a public space for the expression of a plurality of views the
likes of which cannot be seen in any other media. While the net is rightly
celebrated for the "cyber-democracy" it fosters, the libertarian
arguments about the need to protect an absolute freedom of expression
on the internet are indefensible. The right to espouse child pornography
or spew hate at particular communities cannot be defended. Governments
do have a duty and a right to block or ban such web-sites, although
internet technology is such that the authors of such sites are always
a step ahead of the regulators. Bans on political groups are a different
matter: there is always a temptation to use charges of sedition to justify
a muzzling of dissent. The Indian Government has been relatively open
when it comes to imposing political censorship on the net. But it is
a mystery why it chose to pick on the discussion group of the Meghalaya
separatists. The Lashkar-e-Taiba and the ULFA have discussion groups
on Yahoo!, and so do fundamentalists of all hues. But none of them has
attracted official attention. The Government action has seen membership
of the Meghalaya web discussion list increase from 20 to over 300 within
a fortnight. Few had heard earlier of the Hunniewrtep National Liberation
Council of Meghalaya. The Government ban has bestowed on the separatists
a degree of attention they could not have hoped for earlier. Moreover,
it is easy to become a member of this particular internet group. It
is also possible, using one of a huge number of "proxy" servers,
to visit the Yahoo! web-site sought to be blocked. The ban has clearly
been counter-productive.
The most unfortunate
outcome is that the ISPs, in their haste to comply with the Government
directive, have blocked access to all Yahoo! discussion groups. These
lists are some of the most open fora of exchange on the internet. They
cover a range of issues and meet a variety of interests. From the most
simple communication like e-mail exchanges among members of a family
to the most professional such as discussions on technology issues, the
Yahoo! lists provide invaluable services to users of the internet. Hundreds
of thousands of such Yahoo! groups including 12,000-plus with
an India focus are now inaccessible to users in India. The reason
is that the ISPs, in what is supposed to be an IT superpower, do not
have the software to block access to individual sites on Yahoo!. If
the Government has been clumsy in its targeting, the ISPs have let their
subscribers down by imposing an indiscriminate ban. The Government must
go deep into the issue and the practical consequences and implications
of internet censorship. The ISPs must immediately upgrade what it takes
to avoid wholesale inconvenience to the growing number of Indian internet
users in the event of an extreme case attracting official censorship.