Different suggestions flooded the FICCI auditorium on Tuesday regarding better monitoring and governance of the internet by the government at a panel discussion held here for discussing legitimate restrictions on freedom of online speech. The most prominent suggestion from the panellists and the audience alike was to provide more transparency and grievance redressal when the restrictions are imposed. The panel discussion was held against the backdrop of the recent exodus of people from the North East region of India whereby the social media and the internet played a strong but questionable role.

Speaking during the discussion, R Chandrasekhar, secretary, department of telecommunications , said, “There is neither an intent to censor the internet...nor are there any provisions in law which enable the government to do that.” He added that it would be doing injustice to a very complex societal issue if the discussions on restricting online freedom were reduced to binary levels of complete freedom versus complete censorship. “(The idea) is really about legitimate restrictions as opposed to illegitimate censorship,” he said.

Gulshan Rai, director general, CERT-IN, department of electronics & IT, said that it was the first time in India that the Sec 69 A of the IT amendment act 2008 has been used. There are two most important laws empowering the government regarding the internet in India; Sec 69 A and Sec 79. While Sec 69 A empowers the government to block certain content on the Internet, Sec 79 makes the intermediaries liable for certain kinds of content on the internet.

While stake holders and members in the audience expressed their discomfort against use of Sec 79 and targeting of intermediaries, Rai maintained that no intermediary would be targeted if he has met due diligence by advising the publishers against publishing the said content. “Sec 79 is a safe harbour for the intermediaries,” he said. He also added that all the international practices were followed when blocking the 309 sites during the recent incident of the exodus.

Ankhi Das, head of public policy at Facebook, made a case for effective public education for fair use of the internet.  “Enforcement, legal function is fine but if there is no public education definition then problem cannot be fully solved,” she said. Das asked the government to use the social media in a more empowering way to educate people rather than blocking and censoring them.

On suggestions of proactive or pre-censorship by Google and Facebook, Raman Jeet Singh Cheema, senior policy analyst at Google, said that it is almost impossible to sift through the large amount of data on the sites. “There is 72 hours of video uploaded on You Tube every minute which makes it impossible to monitor them proactively,” he said.

Pranesh Prakash from the Centre of Internet and Society said that the government was not thinking about the internet users (in India). “The government should study and emulate the Brazil model,” he said.

All the suggestions in the panel discussion would be recorded and submitted to an executive panel for a review. “We need a continuous and comprehensive engagement to develop better policy for the use of the internet,” Chandrasekhar said. He also added that the government can also take the discussion online, as suggested by one of the members in the audience, to include more stake holders and their opinions in the process of policy building.

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Govt has no plan to censor internet: Telecom secy

(PTI) Asserting that government has no plan to censor Internet, Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar on Tuesday said a combination of self regulation and government intervention needs to be worked out.

"There is neither an intent nor a desire in the government to censor the Internet. That be absolutely clear," Chandrashekhar said during a panel discussion organised by Ficci on freedom of online speech.

He, however, added there should be a discussion on legitimate restrictions and illegitimate censorship.

"There is need for a mature discussion on where do you really draw the line, who draws the line between legitimate restrictions and illegitimate censorship and what are the ways in which we can have some broadly agreed rules," he said.

"We all agreed that we need to have some combination of self regulation and government intervention," he added.

The discussion involved members of civil society, Internet service providers and companies like Google and Facebook.

The government recently had banned around 310 webpages on which morphed images and videos were uploaded to incite communal tensions in the country.

Morphed images and photographs of people who had died in cyclones and earthquakes were circulated as victims of violence in Myanmar on the Internet which led to exodus of northeast people from Bangalore fearing attacks on them.

"The law provides very clearly what kind of restrictions and in what circumstances they can be brought in," Chandrashekhar said on powers of the government to block harmful content.

He, however, said the process should be more transparent and well defined.