Cyber censorship not the answer
By Rashmi Saksena
Three months back when Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal vowed to play cop and put a stop to “offensive” content in cyber space it was seen by many as an attempt by the government to gag freedom of expression. Sibal’s intent hit the headlines with many anguished citizens asking if India was going the china way? Social networking sites were full of messages trashing Sibal for even contemplating such measures.
While Sibal was criticised publically the headline that remained hidden was that in India there is a rapidly growing class of parents anxious about what their children’s online activity. They are worried the sites the child and teenager can log into. Is the child looking at porn? Is the computer showing beheading by extremist groups? Is the sweet 16 miss surfing the internet for fashion which may not fit into the parent’s definition of decent? Or is the boy looking at how to make a bomb? Is the child looking at best way to commit suicide? Who is the teenaged daughter befriending through the internet? Is she arranging to meet this guy? Yes, it is all there and possible in cyber space. Silently, many a parent saw merit in what Sibal was advocating.
Except that the telecom minister was apparently not driven by the snuffing out of national innocence by questionable content on sites that cause worry to parents. And this is the reason why the voice against what Sibal’s move drowned legitimate concerns about harmful content available on the internet. Sibal had spoken of taking steps to stop “offensive and defamatory” content on internet sites after anti Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh content appeared on the net. His meeting with Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo did not seem to get him the desired response. Facebook officials said it would keep out only that material that is hateful, threatening and incites violence or contains nudity. Google took the stand that it abide by local laws but not remove material just because it is controversial.
In this case Sibal’s concern can be a bit out of context if it is only about protecting Congress leaders. But the fact remains that political rivals have been using cyber space to launch attacks on their foes and bring into public domain stuff which is without proof. At the same time anything vulgar and offensive as well as defamatory should not be allowed on the net. There is no dearth of material on the net on Rahul Gandhi, Sonia’s foreign link and ‘antics of Robert Vadera’. All this is passed off as authentic information. Who is verifying it? What is the truth? Can a common surfer find the truth? Impossible. But the content does go a long way in building perceptions which are of utmost significance in the political arena.
The likes of Sunita (not her real identity) the mother of two teenagers is not worried about the sort of content Sibal has in mind. She is amongst the many who routinely logs into her children’s social networking accounts to find out what is going on in their lives. And Sunita has no qualms about this intrusion into their privacy. “I cannot take a risk. I must know what my girls are talking about, who they are taking on as friends and if they are doing something which I should know about”. A psychiatrist at a well known Delhi clinic told that there are many like Sunita. “Since they don’t know how to control what children are watching and reading on internet or their communication on social networking sites, parents slyly monitor the on line activity”.
He talks of cases where parents have actually been able to come across information which is important. “One of the parents brought a child to me who had been regularly logging onto a site which specialized in suicide information. The father did not tell the child that he had tracked this but we soon discovered that the child was depressed. His problem was luckily detected on time. Maybe if not detected it could have led to a major incident”. Another case brought to the doctor was of a girl whose parents unknown to her monitored her on line activity. “It was found that the girl spent all her time looking at stories of the supernatural and scary movie clips”. For the psychiatrist this obsession indicated a psychological problem that needed attention.
However sly intrusion by parents is not something experts recommend. Nor is keeping tabs on them the best solution. Nor is banning the use of the internet. This can have an adverse effect on the child’s personality leading to defiance. The best way is to reach out to the children and build a rapport and mutual trust advises a clinical psychologist. At the same time there is no need to give an impression to the child that the parents will approve of everything they are told. “Parents should let it be known that they will take action if they feel the child is doing something wrong or harmful”. As the controversy about monitoring content in cyber space raged a blog read that censorship is not the answer. Instead parents have to work to inculcate in children the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. The education system too has to work towards this end. If this can be brought about there will be no need for Sibal’s restrictions and regulations. Even impressionable minds will be able to differentiate between slander and constructive criticism, between obscenity and facts of life, between right and wrong. (IPA Service)