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.