India vows to stop 'offensive' internet content

[News_Editor]

India vows to stop 'offensive' internet content

2011-12-07 07:11:34 GMT+7 (ICT)

NEW DELHI (BNO NEWS) -- The Indian government on Tuesday vowed to stop what it calls 'offensive and defamatory' content on internet websites, local media reported. However, several major websites have already rejected the plan.

Telecommunications minister Kapil Sibal said the government does not want to interfere with the freedom of the press. However, he said, if the social networking websites are not willing to cooperate, then it is "the duty of the government" to ensure "blasphemous material" does not appear on the internet.

"This government does not believe in censorship and does not believe either directly or indirectly interfering in the freedom of the press. We have demonstrated that time and again," he said, as quoted by the Press Trust of India (PTI).

Sibal met with officials from Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo during the past few weeks after offensive material, particularly against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was published online. He said his request for cooperation from them fell on "deaf ears."

Social networking site Facebook, which has more than 25 million users in the country, said it will remove any content that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service. "We recognize the government's interest in minimizing the amount of abusive content that is available online and will continue to engage with the Indian authorities as they debate this important issue," Facebook said in a statement.

Google said it will abide by local laws and take any material off if it violates its policies. "But when content is legal and does not violate our policies, we will not remove it just because it is controversial, as we believe that people's differing views, so long as they are legal, should be respected and protected," the company's spokesperson said, as quoted by PTI.

Search engine giant Yahoo! refused to comment on the views of the minister, while Microsoft officials were not available for comments. India has about 100 million internet users, the third-largest number after China and the United States.

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