media. Reply-To:
What to many appeared to be the abstractest of theory just a few months ago, is now becoming frightful reality :-( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-16044554
Kapil Sibal's position seems to be pretty much exactly in line with our projected concept of image filtering (he practically literally uses the term), except he then extends the line all the way into censorship territory, without further scrupules.
If we had already gone ahead with the image filter as projected, we would be snookered by the time Kapil Sibal called our Indian office folks to his office.
With an image filter in place -pretty much exactly to Indian Government specification right off the shelf- there would be no way to argue that such a thing was impossible, difficult, or unconscionable.
We would have either been forced to censor some of our WM projects "You don't have enough image taggers for commons? I'm sure we can provide some", or withdraw from India. Since full-on censorship is intolerable, we would have been forced to withdraw.
Now we (still) have clean hands, and (with a bit of luck) can probably put down a strong(er) argument that can weather any Indian govt attacks on NPOV, should they come. If we are careful, we can likely do so politely and assertively, without hurting too many people's feelings.
(Also: seeing reporting on facebook and twitter activity, and having viewed pages from eg. Hindi Wikipedia, I do not believe that the Indian internet community shares Kapil Sibal's position. Though they'll have to speak for themselves, of course! :-)
sincerely, Kim Bruning
On Tuesday 06 December 2011 08:27 PM, Kim Bruning wrote:
(Also: seeing reporting on facebook and twitter activity, and having viewed pages from eg. Hindi Wikipedia, I do not believe that the Indian internet community shares Kapil Sibal's position. Though they'll have to speak for themselves, of course! :-)
sincerely, Kim Bruning
They have:
http://blogs.outlookindia.com/default.aspx?ddm=10&pid=2664
and Mr Sibal's passing thought of yesterday is probably not going anywhere.
On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 09:25:03PM +0530, Achal Prabhala wrote:
On Tuesday 06 December 2011 08:27 PM, Kim Bruning wrote:
I do not believe that the Indian internet community shares Kapil Sibal's position. Though they'll have to speak for themselves, of course! :-)
They have:
http://blogs.outlookindia.com/default.aspx?ddm=10&pid=2664
and Mr Sibal's passing thought of yesterday is probably not going anywhere.
And hurrah for that! :-)
My absolute nightmare scenario, of course, is that (the next) Mr Sibal calls Twitter, Facebook, Google, ..., and Wikimedia into his (or her) office; and that they all mutter and hem and haw, except us. We would go "Sir, yes sir! All ready to go sir!". This would leave the other "web 2.0" parties in a politically untenable position.
It is my absolute belief that -without intervention- this scenario could happen and, in fact, could have already happened. We have the resources, we have the technology, but (fortunately) we haven't reached consensus on applying them in this manner, yet.
Wikimedia needs to be neutral, and rightly so, imo. However -in terms of essential infrastructure, copyright and freedom of speech- we do have certain requirements. If our supporting ecosystem does not meet those requirements, we fail to thrive.
Therefore, these essential items do require careful attention from social, financial, technical *and* (unfortunately) political angles.
sincerely, Kim Bruning
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 9:07 PM, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 09:25:03PM +0530, Achal Prabhala wrote:
On Tuesday 06 December 2011 08:27 PM, Kim Bruning wrote:
I do not believe that the Indian internet community shares Kapil Sibal's position. Though they'll have to speak for themselves, of course! :-)
They have:
http://blogs.outlookindia.com/default.aspx?ddm=10&pid=2664
and Mr Sibal's passing thought of yesterday is probably not going
anywhere.
And hurrah for that! :-)
A cautious hurrah.
In April this year, the Indian government tried to restrict web content by holding sites and service providers - or 'intermediaries' liable for content. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/technology/28internet.html?_r=2&scp=1&...
These new rules will be considered by Parliament in the winter session - and continue to pose a huge threat to online freedom of expression in India.
Best Bishakha
Some updates on this, for anyone interested:
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/any-normal-human-being-would-be-of...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/facebook-google-tell-india...
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/12/06/indias-dreams-of-web-censorship/...
http://www.legallyindia.com/201112072434/Regulatory/kapil-sibal-to-sterilise...
http://www.livemint.com/2011/12/06130244/Govt-wants-to-scrub-the-Intern.html
There's still no clarity on what Kapil Sibal meant/means; whether he's serious; and the rules of the proposed IT act are still worrying; but at least the outcry is now entrenched.
On Tuesday 06 December 2011 10:24 PM, Bishakha Datta wrote:
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 9:07 PM, Kim Bruningkim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 09:25:03PM +0530, Achal Prabhala wrote:
On Tuesday 06 December 2011 08:27 PM, Kim Bruning wrote:
I do not believe that the Indian internet community shares Kapil Sibal's position. Though they'll have to speak for themselves, of course! :-)
They have:
http://blogs.outlookindia.com/default.aspx?ddm=10&pid=2664
and Mr Sibal's passing thought of yesterday is probably not going
anywhere.
And hurrah for that! :-)
A cautious hurrah.
In April this year, the Indian government tried to restrict web content by holding sites and service providers - or 'intermediaries' liable for content. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/technology/28internet.html?_r=2&scp=1&...
These new rules will be considered by Parliament in the winter session - and continue to pose a huge threat to online freedom of expression in India.
Best Bishakha _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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