Blogged Out

Around this time last month everyone was up in arms against the Government of

India's ban on some blogs. TV channels hosted talk shows, bloggers went

ballistic against the government's China-like attitude, while cyber law

experts had a field day educating us about the legal nuances of such decisions.

As the hue and cry increased it was hastily clarified that the ISPs had goofed

up-they had been asked to ban some blogs, not entire sites.

What did the sites contain? Communal and terrorism stuff, going by reports.

Fair enough-that needs to be monitored, controlled, studied and acted upon.

But is banning sites a solution? Technology thrives under bans and restrictions.

Ban MSN Messenger in your company, and watch how in minutes employees will just

shift to GoogleTalk or Yahoo. Ban a site, and people will search for solutions

to overcome the ban. Ban a blogger from accessing one site, he will just go and

sign up elsewhere, or if nothing, set up an e-mail list. You may as well ban the

Internet.

If technology has to be used meaningfully there is a stake for all the

shareholders. 

There are far too many users who believe that “the Internet is this

great big free space where anyone can do just as he pleases.” What a person

would not dare to do offline gets done on the net because it gives anonymity to

a high degree. As if the law stops to matter once your Internet cable is plugged

in! That is irresponsible and cowardly. Free speech and irresponsible speech are

not synonyms. Are we forgetting this basic tenet? It is important for anyone on

the Net to behave just as they would in real life, as decent human beings who

exercise self-restraint and monitor their own behavior. Clearly there is a huge

education effort required for Netizens-about the basic rules of being on the

Net.

There will still be malicious and unacceptable stuff floating around.

Companies on whose servers those sites sit have also got to pitch in and be

accountable. If you were letting out your house to new tenants, would you give

it to just anyone? And if you come to know that something illegal is happening

in your house would you not take action? Service providers have to take

responsibility for the content being put up on the site. Yes, this is not an

easy task given the terabytes of data that get added each day. And that is where

technology has to step in and be used extensively. If data mining can be used to

find out where I spend how much money or which websites I visit, why cannot it

be extended to locate potentially dangerous stuff? Bland policy statements and

appeals to users are simply not enough.

And needless to add, there have to be well defined global laws and legal

sanctions in place for violators. That perhaps is the biggest challenge. If an

Indian citizen plots against the UK using a website located in the US which law

will apply? And how?

One must confess, with disappointment, that there is no visible sign of a

major international effort being orchestrated to make the use of technology

safer.