[Wikimediaindia-l] An appeal to Wikipedians to join the campaign for freedom in the net

[Prasanth Sugathan]

 Dear Wikipedians,

This email is the result of the stimulating discussions that I have had
over three days with members of the Wikipedia community at the Wiki
Conference India 2011 in Mumbai. The kind of enthusiasm that was visible
across the spectrum of participants – and it indeed was a wide spectrum
from 10 year old editors to representatives from various language
communities to persons with disabilities - has prompted me to write this
letter to the community members appealing them to extend their support to
the campaign to ensure that the ecosystem for Wikipedia – which is first
and foremost a free/open Internet - survives in India.

 The threat to free/open Internet is REAL in India. The new Information
Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011 threaten to curtail our
freedom on the Internet. As the demonstrations over the map issue outside
the venue during the conference showed, there could indeed be threats to
the way the community operates in India. These threats have multiplied
manifold by the notification of these rules.

 *How do the rules operate ?*

The rules, at first look, seem innocuous, as it provides a set of
guidelines for intermediaries to operate in India. But, when you look
deeper, the rules are essentially a control on the users and a coercion on
the intermediaries to implement those controls. The rules require the
intermediary (Wikipedia will fall under the definition of the intermediary)
to enforce a set of terms and conditions on their users. This includes
asking the users not to post any content that will be considered as g*rossly
harmful*, harassing, *blasphemou**s*, *defamatory*, *obscene*,
pornographic, paedophilic, *libellous*, invasive of another's privacy, *
hateful*, or racially, ethnically objectionable, *disparaging*, relating or
encouraging money laundering or gambling, *threatening friendly relations
with foreign states*, or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever. Thus
any editor who posts a content on a historical event, a person or anything
that could be perceived to come under this wide list could be courting
trouble.

 The critical provision of the rules is that anyone who is not happy with
any content that is posted on the intermediary site, and this could include
a person who is upset with a map or a description of a historical event or
person, could write to the intermediary asking them to remove the content.
The intermediary on getting such a request is mandated to comply with the
request within a period of 36 hours. The rules neither require the
complainant to produce a court order, nor does it give an opportunity for a
content creator to reply to such a demand. The intermediary who does not
comply with such a request loses the
safe-harbour<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_harbor#Internet>protections
that it otherwise enjoys. Such a mechanism threatens the
well-honed, time tested procedure of content creation in the Wikipedia and
exposes the Wikipedia to legal actions.

 *Questions of privacy*

The Wikipedia community includes a large number of users who use pseudonyms
and their information is protected as per the privacy
policy<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy>of
Wikipedia. The rules could force Wikipedia, on getting a written
request
from a Government agency authorised under the rules to divulge information
of the user, including facts like IP addresses from which the user posted.
As the rules do not mandate a court order for gaining access to private
information of users and only require a written request, as against an
elaborate procedure in the case of Internet monitoring or telephone
tapping, this threatens the right to privacy of Wikipedia editors.

 We, as a community of Internet users have to ensure that our freedom on
the internet- to use it as a platform for public discourse, as a means of
knowledge dissipation- is not curtailed in any manner by such draconian
rules. I request you to be a part of the campaign to get these rules
amended by signing this *online
petition<http://softwarefreedom.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97&Itemid=83>
*, by writing to your MP and by spreading this message through Facebook,
Google Plus, Twitter, identi.ca and  in every possible manner to Indian
citizens ….


 Warm regards,


 Prasanth Sugathan
Legal Counsel,
Software Freedom Law Center
K-9 Second Floor, Birbal Road,
Jangpura Extension,
New Delhi-110014
Phone# +91-11-43587126
Cell: +91 9013585902
www.sflc.in
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