-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...

-The Indian Express Kapil Sibal, Union minister for communications and information technology, caused great consternation when he declared his intention to scour the Web of “objectionable content”. He showed reporters choice examples of material that maligned Islam, the PM and Sonia Gandhi, among others, and insisted that companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc, make sure they conform to India’s “community standards” and weed this stuff out themselves. He also reportedly added...

-The Telegraph   Social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google have refused to buckle under pressure from the Indian government to take down content that telecom minister Kapil Sibal and the babus on Raisina Hill find objectionable. Sibal told reporters the government wanted the Big Boys of Cyberspace to remove “abusive” comments and images that could ignite a tinderbox of passions in the country but they had refused to do so...

-The Times of India   Tension is brewing once again between the government and internet and social media companies over the telecom and IT ministry's demands to screen user content and remove offensive material before it is uploaded. Sources said over the last three months the government has been in talks with these firms to put in place a monitoring mechanism. On Monday, telecom & IT minister Kapil Sibal met executives from the...

-The Times of India   A government forensic lab's report on a CD allegedly containing conversation between SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh and Team Anna member Shanti Bhushan has said the CD was doctored, contradicting two previous reports. Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Chandigarh's report has been made public for the first time in response to an RTI query. The conclusion of the report was that the CD...