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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Kapil Sibal's demand that Facebook & Google screen user-generated content has a valid point

Kapil Sibal's demand that Facebook & Google screen user-generated content has a valid point

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published Published on Dec 8, 2011   modified Modified on Dec 8, 2011
-The Economic Times
 
Information technology minister Kapil Sibal's demand that Facebook and Google screen user-generated content manually before they put it up is impractical and, therefore, unacceptable. But this does not mean that everything he has said should be rejected alongside. 

Nor is there any merit in the outcries of outrage over imperilled freedom of expression. Free speech is not unbridled, anywhere. Even the internet companies in question accept this. They say they apply their standards to reports of abuse, and act accordingly. Facebook, for example, has rules "designed to keep out material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity". 

Google removes illegal content. The preparedness of these great facilitators of speech and expression to curtail some kinds of speech and expression is sufficient to put paid to the reaction of some that any move to put any kind of limits on free speech is some diabolical conspiracy. If we leave hysteria aside, the core issue is what standards these sites should employ, when they say they apply their standards. Can these standards be universal? 

They would be, in an ideal world where the brotherhood of man is an accomplished fact of everyday life and where neither hate nor greed curdles the milk of human kindness. Till we enter that ideal world, let us accept the reality of great diversity in cultural values and norms of morality that combine to determine what is profane or what gives offence. Acknowledging this diversity does not, however, mean kowtowing to every prejudice. How do we respect cultural sensitivity without giving in to the demands of intolerance? 

One way is to follow the distinction between majoritarianism and democracy: respect the rights of minorities, treating as minority rights the universal values of liberty, equality and fraternity, as embodied in assorted international covenants such as the universal declaration of human rights. Respect majority sentiment, except when it seeks to violate these minority rights. How to put this principle into practice is a matter for reasoned debate, not hyperventilation. It is a debate that all stakeholders must join in, to address a very legitimate concern.


The Economic Times, 9 December, 2011, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/kapil-sibals-demand-has-a-valid-point-be-addressed-legitimately/articleshow/11041421.cms


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