Moron Kapil Sibal’s Rajnikanth-like desire for gagging India’s Internet and Social Media
Welcome to the latest Banana Republic which passes off as a democracy, India. It is common and normal in India for Government ministers and politicians to loot the country, stash the loot in foreign banks. Then if anyone protests, its normal to target him or them with Battalions (Ramdev) or with machiavellian counter measures using the Government machinery like the Income Tax Department.
One thing that made those protests an unprecedented success was the Social Media. And for last one year, the Government is after that. A Government which cannot even secure the emails of its intelligence agencies, is out to censor content on the internet, which could be considered “disparaging,” “harassing,” “blasphemous” or “hateful”! By whom? (Draconian Intent of the Government of India in the new IT Act Rules which threaten to gag bloggers . India Puts Tight Leash on Internet Free Speech).
Not satisfied with that legal backing, the Government has now gone ahead and is trying to engage the social media companies in India to “prescreen user content from India and to remove disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content”.
Kapil Sibal, India’s acting telecommunications minister, called representatives from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook and had a special demands from them:
prescreen user content from India and to remove disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content before it goes online, and
that he expected them to use human beings to screen content, not technology
So he wants the content to be screened “before” it is posted and removed and that it should be done by a human being!! Seems like Kapil Sibal has been watching a lot of Rajnikanth movies! Either that, or he is a rather uncommon level of moron.
Autocracy and Democracy
Democracy can and should ONLY be inhabited by people who are interested and engaged in its polity and governance. It is not just the right but also the duty of every citizen. If anyone is apathetic to the intracracies of the Governance in a country, then one should leave for Saudi Arabia ASAP! Because such a person doesn’t deserve the privilege of living in a democracy. Which is – for the people, of the people, and by the people!
Such an unengaged citizenry should either go to live in an autocracy or if it remains in this country it will turn it into an autocracy before too long! And that is precisely what is happening in India. A country with over a billion apathetic citizens!
If this is the level – Kapil Sibal’s moronic rants and Congress’ laws to gag social media – of meddling that citizens get, without a voice raised against it, then India will – in our own lifetimes – become an irretrievable autocracy!