Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Google, Facebook Fight Indian Censorship Demands

Amol Sharma, The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 17, 2012

From the article: "Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. are fighting back against increasing censorship demands from the Indian government and courts, arguing that they aren't legally responsible for monitoring their websites and proactively removing user content that regulators deem objectionable….Some analysts and lawyers also say the Indian government is stepping up its enforcement of the Web at a time when public outrage over corruption and political dysfunction is spilling into blog posts, Facebook pages and Tweets….While India does block some websites outright, that generally hasn't been its censorship tactic of choice. Instead, authorities—often local police—have pressed Web firms to take down particular content. Under regulations India put in place last year, the companies are supposed to remove material in a range of categories—for example, anything "objectionable," "defamatory" or "blasphemous." Read more