Social Networks to Screen Content - Government is advocating Supervision and Not Censorship

The government is asking leading Internet companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook to screen alleged derogatory, defamatory and inflammatory content about religious figures and Indian leaders.
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal's suggestion that social networking websites screen content before publishing has triggered widespread anger amongst Indian Internet users. (Angry over the fact that a Facebook page maligned Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Monday Dec 05,2011 according to a report in The New York Times, asked internet companies and social media sites like Facebook to screen user content and remove disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content before it goes online)

Facebook's Response to Kapil Sibal

Facebook in a statement says -
''We will remove any content that violates our terms, which are designed to keep material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service''

Govt wanted 358 items removed from Google between Jan-June 2011

 

Google has received government requests for the removal of 358 items from its services, including YouTube and Orkut, during the January-June period 2011, according to a report by the Internet search giant - Google.

The government had asked Google to remove 236 items from Orkut and 19 items from YouTube for government criticism as the reason.As much as 51 per cent of the total requests were partially or fully complied with