There's no question about it: The Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, is worked up. That's putting it at the lowest end of the scale. He is in fact in a terrible rage. Nothing else can explain his going to the extent of summoning high officials of Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Facebook to his presence on three different occasions — September 5, October 19 and December 6 — within the last three months and giving them a piece of his mind. Delete or else! — was his stunning demand.

The ostensible cause of all his agitation: The “derogatory, defamatory and inflammatory” stuff in the Web sites of these Internet companies. They are so ‘incendiary', says Mr Sibal, that they will set the Ganga and Yamuna in flames, not stopping with upsetting the political apple cart.

And how did he find out? Or, in other words, what proof was there that they were incendiary? The New York Times (NYT) has revealed that in the very first meeting, “Sibal showed the executives a Facebook page that ‘maligned' Sonia (Gandhi)” and told them point-blank, “This is unacceptable”. So, that's what it is: Proof enough that India will be in for a breakdown as a State through violent upheavals if this kind of maligning is allowed to continue.

HOBSON'S CHOICE

Soon thereafter, a top official functionary pitches in to supplement Mr Sibal's outrage by referring to the ‘derogatory pictures' of Prophet Mohammed and the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh; but these clearly, as interpreted in news reports published abroad, are no more than additional elements of aggravation, and not the gravamen of the charge. Mr Sibal thumps the table and gives the top executives who are sitting before him in a state of shock and awe the Hobson's choice: Weed them out; for that purpose, set up a “proactive prescreening” system, with staffers looking for objectionable content and deleting it before it is posted; and step on it!

Mark you, Mr Sibal adds in effect, I don't want censorship; I am totally against censorship in all its shapes and forms, if you please don't harp on what my party did during the Internal Emergency of 1975-77. The Government of India does not believe in censorship, period. But, it cannot simply put up with any disparaging and damaging diatribes against my party's high and mighty.

If the Internet companies and social networking platforms declined to remove the offensive content, Mr Sibal bluntly threatened them on November 6, the government would take steps to screen and eliminate “objectionable” content on social networking sites.

So far, the Internet companies are standing their ground, firmly making it clear to the Minister, as per a NYT report, that “his demand is impossible, given the volume of user-generated content coming from India, and that they cannot be responsible for determining what is and isn't defamatory or disparaging”.

PREPOSTEROUS

The new generation of netizens are no respecter of persons or institutions and will have their say, come hell or high water. It falls within the Netizens' Charter of Rights. There is always a germ of truth behind their trenchant and abusive commentaries on persons and issues. Indeed, I would make it mandatory for the political and governing classes everywhere, and especially in India which is yet to emerge from its feudal mould, to go carefully through their so-called ‘offensive' outpourings. They are good for everybody's health.

The demand for prescreening them with a view to rub them out is preposterous. The discussions and debates that occupy the social networking sites do not emanate only from the Indian soil; netizens from all over the globe come out with their views at the speed of thought.

Facebook and Google users in India alone number more than 25 million and 100 million. Worldwide; Google reached a billion unique visitors in May; Facebook 713.6 million and Twitter 100 million. Internet companies will need to set up a huge infrastructure of gizmos and manpower at an intolerable cost to prescreen their content. Mr Sibal, forget Facebook et al , calm down, and concentrate on giving a good account of yourself in performing your regular duties!

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