Indian Minister Seeks To Censor User-Generated Content Online 82
First time accepted submitter punit_r writes "Indian minister for Communications & Information Technology Kapil Sibal met officials from Facebook, Google, YouTube and Yahoo on Monday, 5 December 2011, and told them to screen what goes on the sites. He basically asked the websites to actively screen content. How do you screen such massive amount of data? Well, the IT minister has the perfect recipe: 'We'll use humans to screen content and not technology,' said the IT minister. Meanwhile, he got it back from the social media."
No problem (Score:3)
Just deduct the costs for that bullshit from the his ministry's budget.
Re:No problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Better to deduct it from his salary.
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That won't change much. OTOH if we were talking about the money he receives under the table ...
Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
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yes he is, where do you think all the money from such cases as http://www.ipaidabribe.com/ [ipaidabribe.com] goes to!?! (hint: http://myeconomist.wordpress.com/indias-black-money-in-swiss-bank/ [wordpress.com])
He's not wrong. (Score:1)
Seen any spam ads on Slashdot moderated into oblivion?
The various trolls and first posts done the same way?
We're already doing it here!
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And I doubt censoring content has anything to do with money in the Swiss banks. Either ways, I don't think this thing is really happening. #IdiotKapilSibal is trending in India (Twitter) and my friend pointed out how "Sibal" means man whore in Korean.
I doubt this page was this way before this nutjob stirred up the controversy: http://www [urbandictionary.com]
Of-course (Score:5, Insightful)
Of-course he wants to stop people from speaking. That's what all people in power want - to make sure that the masses never speak.
That's why individual liberties must be the primary concern of all people and that's why the principles upon which governments get established must put individual liberties ahead of all other concerns.
Exactly! (Score:1)
Re:Exactly! (Score:5, Insightful)
it dosn't matter libraries or liberties.. the bastard and his government has taken care of that all.
just take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Literacy_in_India_1901_-_2011.PNG [wikipedia.org]
for first 50 years of independence - him and people of his likes has taken complete care that masses remain illeterate. the jump seen after 1990 is *after* our oh-so-precious ministers were forced to open the economy.
and now they want to screen the content which they may not like... i am sure they will start with wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_in_India [wikipedia.org]
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it dosn't matter libraries or liberties.. the bastard and his government has taken care of that all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Literacy_in_India_1901_-_2011.PNG [wikipedia.org]
Brandon Harris? That bearded bastard! How did he get into Indian government?
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That's the dumbest attempt at a troll ever. What kind of a stupid 'troll' is that? The 'confuser' troll?
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FYI I don't wear knickers, you clumsy clown!
Corruption (Score:5, Insightful)
If you hire all those humans to check the content, just think of all those minds that will be corrupted from the content they are supposed to sift through.
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I'd imagine that would be one of the sweetest jobs of all time.
Literally, a Porn Hunter.
Re:Corruption (Score:5, Interesting)
Censorship is a pure cost center, and(once you get down to the level of pressing the "wicked"/"Not Wicked" buttons in response to an image series) pretty low skill, so there is absolutely no incentive to refrain from pushing you as hard and fast as they can and treating you with all the tender loving care usually reserved for retail peons.
Plus, and I can't stress this enough, You don't get to look at the porn you want, you get to look at the porn the internet wants.
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You seem to imply that there aren't people capable of browsing 'classic /b/' style sites for 12 hours a day.
I'm sure India has their fair share of NEETs that would jump at a job like this, even if it's just kludging through blogspot or whatever.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET [wikipedia.org] "Not in Education, Employment, or Training".
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I imagine rather than being corrupted, those minds would just become numb to formerly outrageous content. Last time I went through the TSA's full body scanners, I looked at the woman watching the results. There was no hint of any of the usual emotions humans experience when seeing other (semi) naked humans--no excitement, shame, or embarrassment. There was just a blank look. Not even an "ugh, I have to do this all day?" look. At best there was a little buried resentment.
I remember feeling sorry for her. Whe
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You, on the other hand, seem to have become numb to the formerly outrageous violation of being routinely bodyscanned while traveling.
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With your x-ray vision? I thought the people viewing the images from the pornoscanners were supposed to be in a different room.
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There was no input device that I can recall, so Facebook should be out. I suppose it's possible she was looking at something else like the output of an x-ray machine, though those people stand right behind it, and she was definitely not behind an x-ray machine.
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Dear Sir,
Please find attached my application for this position.
Yours faithfully,
Winston Smith.
Name suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Name suggestion (Score:4, Funny)
I think Government Experts Stopping Threats Against Political Organizations might work better. Granted, it's longer, but GESTAPO just rolls off the tongue easier.
He's just trying to boost their economy (Score:4, Insightful)
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believe me, he is not.
he (and whoever has been in his post for last century) just want to screen out the content the government feels uncomfortable with - you know like all other megalomaniacs in history of human civilization. But people are rising (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/24/us-india-corruption-middleclass-idUSTRE77N4JO20110824) and he just want to act fast before its too late.
and as for economy, if http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_black_money_in_swiss_banks [wikipedia.org] is to be believed, "The total
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you would think that someone with "IT" in his title would have some vague idea of the ridiculousness of his proposal.
Sir, you must not deal with IT management very often.
Lack of tolerance (Score:5, Insightful)
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Pretty much, yeah:
About six weeks ago, Mr. Sibal called legal representatives from the top Internet service providers and Facebook into his New Delhi office, said one of the executives who was briefed on the meeting.
At the meeting, Mr. Sibal showed attendees a Facebook page that maligned the Congress Party’s president, Sonia Gandhi. “This is unacceptable,” he told attendees, the executive said, and he asked them to find a way to monitor what is posted on their sites.
From the NYT blog. [nytimes.com]
Alternate schedule work plan for the masses! (Score:3)
They can take it in turns, so that half of the population screens one week, and then following week, they're the viewers, and the other half screens.
And the icing on the cake: it will create more work, which results in more jobs too!
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solution is to play a 30 second ad while the desi 'filterer' checks the content. if the content appears after the 30 second ad, you know its 'safe' to view.
I know, I should not give them ideas, huh?
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no, we cannot... who knew they could be plotting to bring scandals to public view
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Possibility aside... it is appalling that the minister wants to pre-censor all the content generated by users. What he is suggesting is that all user generated content be reviewed before it goes online. This is just intolerance to opposing views.
Almost all social networking websites have a "report abuse" mechanism that is most probably checked by humans after some automated filtering. The point is why introduce censorship of any kind that can affect free speech in a democratic country.
I would have given him
Wait (Score:4, Interesting)
I understand how he can ask, say, Facebook to remove disparaging content and screen for it. Stupid and a fundamentally massive and retarded task, to be sure.
But how in gods name did they think that ISPs have the ability to delete content on other and foreign sites?
India's It leaders literally do not understand the internet.
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But how in gods name did they think that ISPs have the ability to delete content on other and foreign sites?
Maybe he got the idea from these people:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_firewall_of_china [wikipedia.org]
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That's not what they/he's asking for though. They demand that service providers somehow actually delete content hosted on random hosts.
I mean, a firewall/filter would easily appease this person, but only because their understanding of the internet is apparently so unbelievably uninformed and stupid.
crowdsource it (Score:1)
I've got it! Instead of paying a large number of people to censor the internet, just let people create links to the good stuff and ignore the bad stuff - soon the whole world will be acting as your censors and only the good stuff will be easy to find!
Now to let Minister Sibal know that I will implement this system for only 1.5 million USD.
Some desi feedback. (Score:1)
To his credit, he was also the guy who released the $35 Android tablet, but I doubt he had anything to do with it directly.
Mired in the Past (Score:1)
Kapil is Indian politician and lawyer (Score:1)
YouTube already censoring (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds like he is looking for an outsourcing deal (Score:1)
Sounds to me like he has some humans that are just perfect for the job. I'd like to see the companies to tell him to take a flying leap and let the consumers decide what they want to read and ignore what they find offensive.
censorship (Score:1)
Censoring ALL social media... (Score:2)
Unemployment: Solved.
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Given time, it can even be shown that Unemployment was never a problem in the first place.
He is preparing for the Dec Protests (Score:4, Informative)
The last time Indian citizens protested against the Govt for Jan Lokpal (an anti-corruption bill) the protesters made use of sms, twitter & facebook.
A month after the protest the Govt passed a bill restricting the number of SMS that can be sent by a person to 100 SMS'es per day.
This looks like the next step.
No one expects fb or twitter to filter all user generated content... But it will certainly give the party in power an excuse to block these sites when the time comes.
sibal is a clown (Score:3)
Using 'think of the children' and 'hurting religious sentiments' as reasons for censoring is getting out of hand all over the world.
this guy is a known clown. all he wants to achieve out of this is to censor all anti-congress sentiments on the indian internets which has been on an incredible rise this year. he is getting what he deserves. look at #kapilsibal and #idiotkapilsibal
the ire is epic. the biggest democracy on the planet prides its free speech. snubbing that is going to take some doing.
The largest democracy wants censorship (Score:2)
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Actually, although Kapil Sibal is democratically elected, this seems to be his own idea. I am Indian, and currently visiting Mumbai. The amount of backlash he is getting from the Indian public is astonishing. Nearly all media is heavily criticising him for this move.
This is not a popularly supported move. And it will go away. Nothing to see , move along.
More info about the man and the meeting (Score:2)
http://isikkim.com/2011-12-is-kapil-sibal-an-idiot-06-06/ [isikkim.com]
He's Been Busy (Score:2)
Indian Minister Seeks To Censor User-Generated Content Online
Also:
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You're a little late [wikipedia.org] since Ted Stevens died last year.