NDTV's rather famous "We the People" program anchored by Burkha Dutt took up the subject of Internet Regulation in India recently, with an episode on it titled "Policing the Net: Desirable or Possible?". The run that I saw was telecast on the NDTV 24x7 channel on 10th June, 2007. I've decided to take up my observations of the discussions on the program here since its a somewhat rare example of moderated public discussion on the subject of regulation of speech and expression on the Internet in India (granted admittedly that the show may not have perhaps represented all the primary stakeholders and cross-stream of views on the subject here in India).
The panelists who were there adding their specific opinions to the debate were (I apologize in advance for any incorrect spellings of names or designations here!); Shalini Gosh (Prof. of Mass Communications at Jamia Millia University), Pawan Duggal (Advocate), Shivam Vij (Journalist with Tehelka, blogs at http://www.shivamvij.com) and Subimal Bhattacharjee (representing of the Govt. of India) among others. I'll try to highlight some of the important points that I observed during the entire program below. Its not a transcript, but since I couldn't obtain a copy of the show from NDTV it's the best that I can give for now.
One interesting point that struck me as I started watching was Pavan Duggal's claim that bloggers fell under the definition of "internet service providers" under the Information Technology Act, 2000. From what I've seen and reviewed of the law, thats not really the case and actually a rather excessively wide interpretation of the term ISP under the law. What Pavan Duggal was trying to say (as brought out when asked to explain the position put forward by him in layman's terms) was that bloggers are liable for what they put up online. I gather thats actually a reference to defamation law, as well as possible the offenses concerning obscenity and other publication relation crimes, rather than ISP liability under the IT Act.
Shohini Gosh was then focused on for a bit, and she spoke on two aspects of the problem with regulating speech and expression, namely that there are different categories of speech and the difficulty in making effective means to permissibly restrict the same. Pawan Duggal seemed to disagree with this, saying that he had a problem with this "Chalta Hai" (translation- "it goes on") attitude since whatever was said on the Net was archived and accessible even after 10 years. He termed this as coming under the ambit of what he termed as the "Google effect", in what I'm assuming is a reference to the search engines ability to easily bring up and also store cache pages containing the reference in question. Of course, while this is an important point (the Internet's ability to easily distribute content widely at practically no cost with considerable data retention), it seemed to me to be more pandering to the hysteria of the Net's wide reach rather than a real balanced view of the interests involved.
Taking on from this, Burkha Dutt then brought up the subject of online anonymity, questioning the reason as to why was it psychologically important to so many Internet users. Shivam Vij answered this by saying that it allowed for freedom of speech, by allowing for views to be put forward without fear of consequences. Interestingly, this is a general view that the US Judiciary has placed considerable importance on in numerous cases pertaining to freedom of speech and expression, linking the ability to remain anonymous to the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression since it allows for citizens to speak up freely without fear of the consequences of being targeted for their views.
When it came to analyzing the power of the Government, the 2003 Notification of the Central Government empowering CERT-IN to act as a nodal agency for deciding blocking requests was taken up. While the government representative tried to dodge any criticism of the same by saying that "clear guidelines were given" with respect to this power, it was countered by Shivam Vij's observation that this was only a procedure put down on paper to grant the process an appearance of legitimacy, with many issues including that of transparency not being addressed by the government.
In a response by an unnamed member of the audience, it was said that technology had just added a new dimension to the issue of guiding people, and that banning things would not be an effective alternative to "handhold youth" in such cases. Interestingly, most of the program focused on the effects that the Net had on minors (in addition to the issue of defamation) rather a broad analysis of the issues of possibly obscene speech and hate speech.
Also interestingly, comparisons between the Internet and TV were often made, including comments as to how if the online video clip (I think on YouTube) of Mahatma Gandhi were shown on a medium like TV, the consequences would be significant and action would be taken. I find such analogies problematic because in most cases, the Internet requires actual seeking out on the part of the viewer, rather than the general lack of control one has (besides changing channels) over what might be shown via TV programs. This lack of distinction is important considering what Shivam Vij then went on to point out, that under the planned Convergence Bill he was given to believe that the Government could apply it to online content hosted by bloggers as well, and take action against them. This wasn't really then addressed in the course of the show. Mr Bhattacharjee has of course earlier in response to the discussion of the video clip of Mahatma Gandhi gone on to say that he was the Father of our Nation, and that "we must not allow anyones father to be denigrated like that" or something to the same. Note that he doesn't refer to any specific law that such content violates, just that bland statements as to the status of Mahatma Gandhi. This is somewhat problematic given that restrictions on freedom of speech are meant to be exceptions to the rule, flowing from specific criteria.
Burkha Dutt then posed the question of whether the Internet should be continuously treated as a separate medium. This is an odd question in two ways; firstly in that she isn't clearly stating how exactly and in what manner it's being treated as a separate medium and secondly in that she doesn't really address the point as to the Internet indeed being a fundamentally different medium that print, cinema, or television. Thus, it makes Pavan Duggal's response to this, that the Net "can't be treated as a Wild West anymore!" even more out of place. He also said something as to how he favored an "enabling legislation" though, which he didn't clarify at all.
Shalini Ghosh's statement then that freedom of speech entailing the willingness to accept even shocking speech then stands as an interesting general position in counter. This seemed to set up the stage for a broad range of similar responses from the audience in the open round. One person said that the public outrage against the Gandhi video was merely an example of jingoism while another said that pornography was a personal choice, which must be respected provided that children were protected. Interestingly, the show producers saw fit to prepare a short media segment on children watching porn online, which was somewhat classically dramatic and alarmist.
Considerably more was said, but I didn't really observe anything of substantial input in the same. The two points that I did note towards the closing were the following statements.
"The problem is more of the human condition rather than a medium"
"When new sites are blocked, we cannot know why, how, when etc"
Hence, it seems that there isn't a clear single track of public opinion concerning regulation of speech and expression on the Internet in India. There's a considerable amount of alarm-ism, arguably promoted by the traditional media in response to certain incidents of obscene content being used to harass people and children watching pornography, but there still seems to be considerable willingness amongst many to allow online content to not be subject to constant regulation.
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