With Indian government’s move to regulate the contents on the blogs it seems the blogosphere is going to go down. Even though it has led to criticisms from many bloggers regarding governments restriction on free speech, governments official seem adamant and are going to hit hard at the blogging community.
The issue lies in 2008’s Indian IT act amendment leading to changes in legal position of intermediaries or those who provide web-hosting services, internet service providers and online auction sites. The term intermediaries was broadened to include blogs, though they neither provide the same kind of services like the ISPs nor have large-scale commercial interests. Companies like Amazon , cyber-cafes, payment sites like Paypal , online auction sites, internet service providers like BSNL, Airtel etc fall in this category as networked service providers. This law demands blogs to not display, modify, upload or publish information that is ‘harmful’, ‘threatening’, ‘abusive’, ‘harassing’, ‘blasphemous’, ‘objectionable’, ‘defamatory’, ‘vulgar’, ‘obscene’, ‘pornographic’, ‘pedophilic’, ‘libelous’, ‘invasive of another’s privacy’, ‘hateful’, ‘disparaging’, ‘racially , ethnically or otherwise objectionable, ‘relating to money laundering or gambling’.
This is a serious move for small bloggers and for those who has zeroed in on blogging as their occupation. With this act in place, bloggers feel government will use this to charge writers for just about anything. Twitter saw bloggers expressing their disagreement to this act.
If I want to express my views about a product, I may only write the good things as if it is proved harmful to the brand then I may have to face legal obligations. It will curb responses of the general public who want to express their views and also share with others. Blogging had provided any effective medium for some experts to earn their livelihood as well, who will have to change their strategy and will have to try and find an effective way to overcome this. It becomes necessary in some cases when people try to damage the brand by writing abusive stuff. Does it justify to stop blogging freely?
Is it the end of blogging? We will have to wait and see….
For more information:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/bloggers-call-content-regulation-a-gag-on-freedom/articleshow/7659593.cms
