Centre for Internet and Society

Centre blocks 32 websites for security reasons, restores some later

praskrishna — 2015-01-02T14:13:03Z

The Centre on Wednesday asked Internet Service Providers (ISP) to block 32 websites citing national security concerns, especially from terror group ISIS.

The article by S. Ronendra Singh was published in the Hindu Businessline on December 31, 2014. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.

The move created a flutter on social networking sites, as most of the Web sites, such as archive.org, vimeo.com, github.com, pastebin.com, codepad.org and paste2.org, were being used by global communities like application developers for free movies and books, coders and text sharing.

By late evening, some sites were restored.

Sources in the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology confirmed the development and told BusinessLine: “It was based on some national security issues, and we cannot compromise with our nation’s security….”

A senior official from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said the directive had come from a Mumbai court after the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had approached it to block some Web sites carrying anti-India content.

The matter came to light after a circular, purportedly sent by DoT to ISPs, showed up on social networking sites, listing the sites, along with some screen shots. Incidentally, the said circular had edited out the letter head, date and the signature below. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT cell head, Arvind Gupta, tweeted saying ‘the Web sites that have been blocked were based on an advisory by the Anti-Terrorism Squad, and were carrying anti-India content from ISIS’.

However, later in the evening, Gupta, in his tweet said, some of the Web sites such as vimeo.com have been restored because they have removed ‘objectionable content and/or cooperated with the on going investigations’.

However, the blocked Web sites raised a furore in the social media wherein people said the Government should amend the laws than do such things.

“The problem isn’t just about the specific sites that are blocked; the problem is always about the bad law + process relating to #GoIBlocks,” Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director at Centre for Internet and Society tweeted. He said the 69A Rules (of the IT Act 2000) does not allow for transparency, accountability and time-limits on blocks, so it is easily misused by the Government, the courts and individuals.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-businessline-december-31-2015-s-ronendra-singh-

Caught in a filter bubble

praskrishna — 2016-11-24T01:45:35Z

The country seems to be polarised over demonetisation and its after-effects. And more likely than not, you’ve had plenty of news stories to read that corroborate what you believe, regardless of whether you think the scrapping of the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes was an ingenious plan or not, especially if you get most of your news on social media.

The article by Chetana Divya Vasudev was published by Deccan Herald on November 22, 2016. Rohini Lakshané was quoted.

However, does the news you’re consuming give you a clear picture of everything going on around you or is it merely helping you live in your own bubble? This has become a hot topic of discussions post the US Presidential elections, with Facebook also coming under fire for it.

Social media sites in particular and the internet in general have been serving people stories that put forth points of view they largely agree with. “This is a phenomenon called the social media filter bubble,” says Rohini Lakshane, programme officer, Centre for Internet and Society. This means that because most people in your network think like you, what you read mostly concurs with your opinions, reinforces your bias, reducing your chances of coming across opposing viewpoints, she explains. “It’s all-pervasive, Twitter also tailors your feeds and the ‘while you were away’ section, unless you uncheck it in your settings,” she says. Using incognito mode for Google searches and clearing cookies are a couple of other steps you could take to check this filter bubble, she adds.

“As someone into policy research, I can’t let my personal prejudices affect what I read or understand,” she offers. “So I also ensure I constantly interact with people from different walks of life.” Keeping an open mind to multiple perspectives could help people remain more informed, she suggests.

Entrepreneur Devashish Mamgain says he makes a conscious effort to search for stories he knows he wouldn’t agree with. “I do this because I’m already up to date with what I like or support, and I think it’s important to know the other side as well,” he says. He doesn’t rely on social media for his news but knows many who do and thinks it limits their knowledge.

Savitha A Isaac, a content writer, says she unsubscribes to newsfeeds on Facebook she doesn’t want to read. “I get annoyed when it shows up what’s trending — videos and memes that are going viral. I feel most of this is US-centric; almost like it’s telling us we have to care about what’s happening there. My husband and I have noticed that Google keeps tabs on what you’re searching for and comes up with suggestions,” she says. This is also true of Facebook.

“I usually read a lot of investigative and feminist stories from certain sites. And when such links pop up as suggestions on your wall — or is reflected in the adds you see — it feels really nice. But it also feels wrong,” she says. “It’s creepy, almost as if someone’s stalking you.”

Uroosa Ayman Fathima, her colleague, believes most content on social media is not accurate. “I only click on a link if it’s that of a news website I trust to be at least 80 per cent accurate,” she says. And she verifies what catches her interest with news in the print media, a more credible source, she believes.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-november-22-2016-chetana-divya-vasudev-caught-in-a-filter-bubble

Cambridge Analytica scandal: How India can save democracy from Facebook

sunil — 2018-03-28T15:44:00Z

Hegemonic incumbents like Google and Facebook need to be tackled with regulation; govt should use procurement power to fund open source alternatives.

The article was published in the Business Standard on March 28, 2018

The Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light when whistleblower Wylie accused Cambridge Analytica of gathering details of 50 million Facebook users. Cambridge Analytica used this data to psychologically profile these users and manipulated their opinion in favour of Donald Trump. BJP and Congress have accused each other of using the services of Cambridge Analytica in India as well. How can India safeguard the democratic process against such intervention? The author tries to answer this question in this Business Standard Special.

Those that celebrate the big data/artificial intelligence moment claim that traditional approaches to data protection are no longer relevant and therefore must be abandoned. The Cambridge Analytica episode, if anything, demonstrates how wrong they are. The principles of data protection need to be reinvented and weaponized, not discarded. In this article I shall discuss the reinvention of three such data protection principles. Apart from this I shall also briefly explore competition law solutions.

Collect data only if mandated by regulation

One, data minimization is the principle that requires the data controller to collect data only if mandated to do so by regulation or because it is a prerequisite for providing a functionality. For example, Facebook’s messenger app on Android harvests call records and meta-data, without any consumer facing feature on the app that justifies such collection. Therefore, this is a clear violation of the data minimization principle. One of the ways to reinvent this principle is by borrowing from the best practices around warnings and labels on packaging introduced by the global anti-tobacco campaign. A permanent bar could be required in all apps, stating ‘Facebook holds W number of records across X databases over the time period Y, which totals Z Gb’. Each of these alphabets could be a hyperlink, allowing the user to easily drill down to the individual data record.

Consent must be explicit, informed and voluntary

Two, the principle of consent requires that the data controller secure explicit, informed and voluntary consent from the data subject unless there are exceptional circumstances. Unfortunately, consent has been reduced to a mockery today through obfuscation by lawyers in verbose “privacy notices” and “terms of services”. To reinvent consent we need to bring ‘Do Not Dial’ registries into the era of big data. A website maintained by the future Indian data protection regulator could allow individuals to check against their unique identifiers (email, phone number, Aadhaar). The website would provide a list of all data controllers that are holding personal information against a particular unique identifier. The data subject should then be able to revoke consent with one-click. Once consent is revoked, the data controller would have to delete all personal information that they hold, unless retention of such information is required under law (for example, in banking law). One-click revocation of consent will make data controllers like Facebook treat data subjects with greater respect.

There must be a right to explanation

Three, the right to explanation, most commonly associated with the General Data Protection Directive from the EU, is a principle that requires the data controller to make transparent the automated decision-making process when personal information is implicated. So far it has been seen as a reactive measure for user empowerment. In other words, the explanation is provided only when there is a demand for it.

The Facebook feeds that were used for manipulation through micro-targeting of content is an example of such automated decision making. Regulation in India should require a user empowerment panel accessible through a prominent icon that appears repeatedly in the feed. On clicking the icon the user will be able to modify the objectives that the algorithm is maximizing for. She can then choose to see content that targets a bisexual rather than a heterosexual, a Muslim rather than a Hindu, a conservative rather a liberal, etc. At the moment, Facebook only allows the user to stop being targeted for advertisements based on certain categories. However, to be less susceptible to psychological manipulation, the user should be allowed to define these categories, for both content and advertisements.

How to fix the business model?

From a competition perspective, Google and Facebook have destroyed the business model for real news, and replaced it with a business model for fake news, by monopolizing digital advertising revenues. Their algorithms are designed to maximize the amount of time that users spend on their platforms, and therefore, don’t have any incentive to distinguish between truth and falsehood. This contemporary crisis requires three types of interventions: one, appropriate taxation and transparency to the public, so that the revenue streams for fake news factories can be ended; two, the construction of a common infrastructure that can be shared by all traditional and new media companies in order to recapture digital advertising revenues; and three, immediate action by the competition regulator to protect competition between advertising networks operating in India.

The Google challenge

With Google, the situation is even worse, since Google has dominance in both the ad network market and in the operating system market. During the birth of competition law, policy-makers and decision-makers acted to protect competition per se. This is because they saw competition as an essential component of democracy, open society, innovation, and a functioning market. When the economists from the Chicago school began to influence competition policy in the USA, they advocated for a singular focus on the maximization of consumer interest. The adoption of this ideology has resulted in competition regulators standing powerlessly by while internet giants wreck our economy and polity. We need to return to the foundational principles of competition law, which might even mean breaking Google into two companies. The operating system should be divorced from other services and products to prevent them from taking advantage of vertical integration. We as a nation need to start discussing the possible end stages of such a breakup.

In conclusion, all the fixes that have been listed above require either the enactment of a data protection law, or the amendment of our existing competition law. This, as we all know, can take many years. However, there is an opportunity for the government to act immediately if it wishes to. By utilizing procurement power, the central and state governments of India could support free and open source software alternatives to Google’s products especially in the education sector. The government could also stop using Facebook, Google and Twitter for e-governance, and thereby stop providing free advertising for these companies for print and broadcast media. This will make it easier for emerging firms to dislodge hegemonic incumbents.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/business-standard-march-28-2018-sunil-abraham-cambridge-analytica-scandal-how-india-can-save-democracy-from-facebook

Brazil’s experience a red flag for WhatsApp in Indian polls, say experts

Admin — 2018-10-28T06:06:19Z

Data shows that the share of active WhatsApp users in rural India has doubled since 2017, according to a survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

The article by Vidhi Choudhary was published in Hindustan Times on October 21, 2018. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Instant messaging service WhatsApp will have to put more safeguards in place to avoid its misuse in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,experts say. Some point to the experience in the recent elections in Brazil,where the Facebook-owned platform battled allegations on its use to influence the popular vote, with mass-WhatsApp messages pushing anti-leftist propaganda.

“There is no easy way to say this but the likelihood of a WhatsApp scandal in the run-up to the 2019 elections in India is imminent. I won’t be surprised if there is already something similar taking place in India. That’s because there is no way to control the message that is being shared on the platform. The only way to stop this is by revoking the end-to-end encryption which will impair the privacy WhatsApp users enjoy,” said lawyer Rahul Matthan, partner at the law firm Trilegal and author of Privacy 2.0, which traces the historic origin and current debates on privacy.

WhatsApp has over 200 million users in India, its largest market. The absence of a data protection law in India (one is in the works but is unlikely to be passed before the elections) only adds to this problem, although this transcends WhatsApp.

“The large scale sale of phone numbers, and subsequent bombardment of messages, without seeking consent is also a reminder that we urgently need rules to limit the use of personal data for political campaigns. Europe’s law, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), for example, puts strict limits on direct marketing, including by political parties and campaigners. Yet India is approaching its own elections without any effective data protection rules in place,” said Amba Kak, public policy adviser at web browser Mozilla.

The election commission is aware of the challenge. In an interview to Hindustan Times, chief election commissioner OP Rawat said the biggest challenge for the ECI right now is posed by technology firms that have wherewithal to influence voters.

According to a survey conducted by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) and reported by the HT earlier this week, 40% of rural users of the messaging platform were part of WhatsApp groups created by members or representatives of political parties. A third of the users spend between one hour and four hours on the app daily, the survey found. “This reflects the level of campaigning and penetration of political parties. Villages are always politically sensitive and also interested in politics,” the HT report said, quoting DEF’s Osama Manzar.

The survey noted that 63% of the respondents were not on the service in 2014. The share of active WhatsApp users in rural India has doubled since 2017, according to the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

A possible solution is to make sure voters are consistently informed about the issue of misinformation and fake news in India, added Matthan. “WhatsApp should continue to build a concerted marketing campaign against fake news to make voters aware, so that they exercise restraint while sending and sharing messages received from other users. The only trouble is if the message is received from a trusted ally, then one is likely to believe it. That’s why there is no absolute way to ensure shadow campaigns are not circulated on WhatsApp,” he explained.

The Facebook-owned platform has said in an earlier statements that it believes this is a challenge that requires government, civil society and technology companies to work together. “Our strategy has been twofold. First, to give people the controls and information they need to stay safe; and second, to work proactively to prevent misuse on WhatsApp,” WhatsApp said in the statement in July.

In July, WhatsApp launched a label to identify forwarded messages in a bid to combat fake news and the spread of misinformation globally, including India. It later set a limit to the use of forwarded messages to five chats in India. After that WhatsApp took out full-page advertisements in Indian newspapers offering “easy tips” to distinguish between fact and fiction as it battles rising pressure to curb the spread of misinformation in India after the lynching of at least 30 people in the country since May, with at least some being caused by rumours forwarded over phones.

Sunil Abraham, director at the think tank Centre for Internet and Society said WhatsApp could employ a network of fact checkers and explore “in application education”.

Local authorities in various parts of the country have resorted to Internet shutdowns to counter incidents of violence triggered by rumours on WhatsApp. Law firm Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), based in New Delhi, has tracked down 116 Internet shutdowns across India in 2018 alone. In 2017, India reported 79 shutdowns; in 2016, the number was 31 and in 2012 it was just three. The rise from three shutdowns in 2012 to more than 100 this year marks a 3,766% surge. “State and central government and local authorities might consider this a solution. But a shutdown is completely against freedom of speech and that’s our view,” said an SFLC spokesperson. WhatsApp users in rural India do not blindly trust messages they receive on the messaging service, according to the DEF survey.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-vidhi-choudhary-october-21-2018-brazil-s-experience-a-red-flag-for-whatsapp-in-indian-polls-say-experts

Beyond Public Squares, Dumb Conduits, and Gatekeepers: The Need for a New Legal Metaphor for Social Media

amber — 2021-05-31T10:23:36Z

In the past few years, social networking sites have come to play a central role in intermediating the public’s access to and deliberation of information critical to a thriving democracy. In stark contrast to early utopian visions which imagined that the internet would create a more informed public, facilitate citizen-led engagement, and democratize media, what we see now is the growing association of social media platforms with political polarization and the entrenchment of racism, homophobia, and xenophobia.

There is a dire need to think of regulatory strategies that look beyond the ‘dumb conduit’ metaphors that justify safe harbor protection to social networking sites. Alongside, it is also important to critically analyze the outcomes of regulatory steps such that they do not adversely impact free speech and privacy. By surveying the potential analogies of company towns, common carriers, and editorial functions, this essay provides a blueprint for how we may envision differentiated intermediary liability rules to govern social networking sites in a responsive manner.

Introduction

Only months after Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory — a feat mired in controversy over alleged Russian interference using social media, specifically Facebook — Mark Zuckerberg remarked that his company has grown to serve a role more akin to government, rather than a corporation. Zuckerberg argued that Facebook was responsible for creating guidelines and rules that governed the exchange of ideas of over two billion people online. Another way to look at the same argument is to acknowledge that, today, a quarter of the world’s population (and of India) are subject to the laws of Facebook’s terms and conditions and privacy policies, and public discourse around the globe is shaped within the constraints and conditions they create. Social media platforms, like Facebook, wield hitherto unimaginable power to catalyze public opinions, causing a particular narrative to gather steam — that Big Tech can pose an existential threat to democracy.

This, of course, is in absolute contrast to the early utopian visions which imagined that the internet would create a more informed public, facilitate citizen-led engagement, and democratize media. Instead, what we see now is the growing association of social media platforms with political polarization and the entrenchment of racism, homophobia, and xenophobia. The regulation of social networking sites has emerged as one of the most important and complex policy problems of this time. In this essay, I will explore the inefficacy of the existing regulatory framework, and provide a blueprint for how to think of appropriate regulatory metaphors to revisit it.

Click on to read the article published by IT for Change
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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/it-for-change-amber-sinha-beyond-public-squares-dumb-conduits-and-gatekeepers

Bengaluru cops' twitter handle in ethical storm

praskrishna — 2017-04-07T02:38:24Z

The city's privacy activists are among the most strident in trying to prevent the Union government from gaining unprecedented access to citizens' personal information through Aadhaar. But in their own backyard, Bengaluru police have been publishing on Twitter the phone numbers of thousands of citizens reporting various crimes such as gambling on the streets, random quarrels and harassment of women.

The article by Umesh Yadav was published in the Times of India on April 6, 2017. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

The police control room has put out more than 46,000 tweets since April 2015 containing the numbers of complainants calling the emergency number 100. The phone numbers of citizens reaching the control room through Bengaluru police's new emergency mobile application, Suraksha, too are being published through this handle.

Thankfully, the Twitter handle, @BCPCR, had a mere 66 followers as on the evening of April 5, nearly 30 per cent of which were various police stations in the city. On Wednesday evening, the police closed the account for public view.

ET has screenshots of tweets from the account. A senior police officer at Bengaluru police's Command Control was unapologetic for the breach of privacy. The tweets are generated automatically and meant to `show' the number of calls received by the control room and the number of people using the new app, he said.

On the matter of compromising the safety of the complainants, the officer said, "It is obvious that the accused will know who registered the complaint and privacy does not matter here."

Expectedly, privacy and law experts are indignant.

"This is horrible and unpardonable," said Supreme Court advocate KV Dhananjay. "The fact that the police did not consider it necessary to ask for permission before broadcasting someone's identity shows how insensitive the Police Commissioner's office has become to the privacy concern of our society." Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director at the Centre for Internet and Society and who has been at the forefront of the campaign against any potential misuse of Aadhaar, too said the "police officer who ordered to create such an account should be held responsible if any harm comes to a complainant."

Complainants ET spoke with were startled about the abuse of their privacy. Gowda, a complainant, who had informed the police control room about the sale of cigarettes within 100 metres of a school, had specifically requested the police to not disclose his identity.

"(This is why) it is better to keep quiet when you see lawbreakers," he said on hearing that Bengaluru police had published his phone number on Twitter.

"This is injustice and this is the reason why people are scared to inform the police of crimes. If the accused send people to beat me, what should I do?" Dhanusha had called the control room about some teenagers who were teasing girls at a bus stop. The police arrived and took the boys in. She, too, is now worried. "If the accused get my number, they are going to harass me. The police do not have any right to display our phone numbers in public."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-april-6-2017-umesh-yadav-bengaluru-cops-twitter-handle-in-ethical-storm

Behind Modi’s Heartwarming Diwali Ad for Soldiers, An App That’s Primed for Political Messaging

praskrishna — 2016-10-30T07:33:57Z

The campaign, which allows users to send Modi quotes on themes like Ayodhya and the perfidy of the Opposition, raises questions about the boundaries between government, party and personal promotion.

The article by Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty was published in the Wire on October 29, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

On October 22, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a public campaign, Sandesh2Soldiers, urging the people to be a part of it. The prime minister prodded people to express their gratitude to soldiers guarding the borders through the campaign by sending them personalised messages on the occasion of Diwali.

Such messages can be sent through the Narendra Modi mobile app, the “official app of the prime minister”, or by logging on to www.mygov.in, a central government platform launched by the prime minister in 2014 to facilitate participatory governance by engaging the public. One can also send a message by recording it after dialing a 10-digit number – which would then be aired by All India Radio (AIR).

Media reports said a special module had been created within the mobile app to not only enable people to send text messages to soldiers but also to upload handwritten letters, decorated cards and videos to them expressing their Diwali wishes and feelings for the armed forces.

A special video that carried Modi’s appeal to the public to send messages to the armed forces was shared on social media along with a few other videos to promote the prime minister’s idea. One such video features a child sending a ‘thank you rocket’ to soldiers for defending the nation under hostile circumstances. That the call to send a personal message has come from the prime minister has upped the profile of this campaign.

Bollywood stars like Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan, and cricketers such as Virat Kohli, Virendra Sehwag and Mohammad Kaif have also posted their messages to soldiers on Twitter by using the prime minister’s campaign hashtag #Sandesh2Soldiers. Many Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politicians and ministers have also joined in.

As per a tweet by AIR on October 26, “Around 9,800 persons sent their good wishes to jawans of security forces so far during this festive season”. Last checked, www.mygov.in, run by the National Informatics Centre under the the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, showed 13,000 messages and video uploads recorded. The number is going up by the minute.

While the registration requirement at the government’s www.mygov.in portal only requires the sender to provide her or his name and e-mail address to be able to send a message or upload a video – a usual cyber safety procedure – those who want to use the Modi app for the purpose will have to do more: they will first have to agree to be personally profiled by the prime minister’s “official” mobile application.

Personally identifiable information

This is how things work: to register oneself through the app and send a message, a user not only has to disclose her name, mobile number and email address but also profession, the state and the district she belongs to, her voter identification card number, specific areas of interests and a personal description within “500 characters”.

This has left many potential senders and experts flummoxed. Why does a citizen, in order to express her gratitude to the armed forces on the occasion of Diwali at the call of her prime minister need to share additional information with the app, which amounts to profiling? At a time when the Supreme Court is hearing a bunch of petitions on the mandatory use of Aadhar cards by the government, some of which deal with issues of privacy and the possible misuse of the collected data, this is a relevant question.

“There was absolutely no need for the app to ask for additional information from a user just to send a message to the armed forces. As far as the additional information sought from a user is concerned, it allows the data collector to build a profile of the user but it is not profiling in the modern big data sense wherein multiple data sources are combined to create a complete profile of the data subject,” says Sunil Abraham, director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society.

Abraham adds, “There is no guarantee that the data collected (through the app) won’t be used illegally by some commercial enterprise, etc. because our data protection law, Section 43A of the Information and Technology Act, doesn’t apply to the state but only to the private sector. In other words, if the personal information is shared with the government, then it is perfectly legal for the government to disclose the personal information to other government or commercial entities.”

Unlike the MyGov portal, where a user can type or upload a message, the Narendra Modi mobile app also automatically adds a quote from the prime minister below the one typed by the user. It expresses the prime minister’s pride over “the indomitable valour and supreme sacrifice of our armed forces etched in the memory of every Indian”.

The prime minister launched his official mobile app in August last year at a function reportedly organised by MyGov, thus making him the first prime minister to have a mobile app named after him. Designed by a team of six students from Delhi Technical University after winning a two-phased contest launched by MyGov in March last year, the app has been described as “a one-stop destination for knowing about all the latest day-to-day activities of the prime minister.”As per media reports, the app would correspond to the prime minister’s official website, www.pmindia.gov.in.

Obviously then, information on how to access the app and take part in the campaign have been publicised through his portal, www.pmindia.gov.in.

This raises another question. Even though www.pmindia.gov.in is not directly accepting public messages for the armed forces but is only promoting the campaign and giving information on how to download the mobile app for it (thereby proving that it corresponds to the app), it does direct an interested user to the prime minister’s personal website, www.narendramodi.in on clicking its publicity window designed for the campaign.

The user can then download the Modi app from his personal website, which was used extensively during the run-up to the 2014 parliamentary elections by Modi to reach out to voters. So the app not only corresponds to the official website of the prime minister but also with his personal website through the official website. Curiously, it is not possible to access the app from the MyGov portal even though the entity under the Ministry of Electronics and Information launched the app at a function on August 6 in New Delhi reportedly organised by it.

Thus, while the app that seemed to have been developed and launched by a government department can’t be accessed directly through a government portal, it can be accessed through the prime minister’s personal portal. Also, features in the app like “forget password” are handled by his personal website, which communicates with an app user as its “Admin”.

So who runs the app? Is it not the official app of the prime minister of the country? Who owns it? Is it his personal app that he considers “official”? These are questions to which answers are not easily available.

No answers

The Wire made multiple attempts to get an official response, both from the government and the BJP Cyber Cell, about these queries but failed to get an answer. The Wire also failed to get any official clarification to why the app seeks personal details of a user to just send messages to the armed forces.

Calls and text messages to the social media cell of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) – the government’s media interface in the digital space – the office of Anurag Jain, listed in the www.pmindia.gov.in as the “web information office”, and to MyGov, which launched the app at the second anniversary function of the Modi government on August 6 last year in New Delhi, failed to receive a reply. All that a PIB official was willing to say on condition of anonymity to this correspondent, “I think it has been outsourced, we don’t deal with it. May be you can contact the PMO.”

Anurag Jain’s office at the PMO said, “You won’t get any information here on the app and the response of the people for the campaign through it. Call the appointments section, it might know.” But that section didn’t respond.

A mail sent to Arvind Gupta of the BJP’s Cyber Cell too has so far remained unanswered. A BJP source, however, pointed out, “If you go to @narendramodi_in, it clearly mentions that it is the twitter account of narendramodi.in, the personal website of Narendra Modi and also of the Narendra Modi mobile app. So it is his personal app.”

The question of why a personal app of the prime minister is then called his “official” app remains unanswered. Also, why is it then that the bulk text messages sent by a government entity, MyGov, direct the public to the prime minister’s personal app to send a message to the armed forces? Is it personal or official?

Meanwhile, the traffic directed by the prime minister’s official website to his personal portal can make use of the e-greeting section in it to send a Diwali e-card to family, relatives, colleagues, etc.

To send such an e-card, the user needs to follow four mandatory steps – choosing a card from the available options, selecting a pre-written Diwali message; selecting a quote of the prime minister from an exhaustive list made available to the user, and adding the name, salutation and email address of the recipient of the card.

The list of quotes – in English and Hindi – have been culled out of the prime minister’s speeches that straddle a variety of categories including Pakistan, terrorism, ASEAN, Nepal, Bhutan, Swacchh Bharat mission, the idea of India, secularism, disability, caste, dalits, governance, yoga, youth, et al.

It also has “motivation” as a category of prime minister’s sayings. Clicking it will give a user the choice of a long list of the prime minister’s quotes which begins with the need for the world to recognise the sacrifice made by Indian soldiers in the two world wars and ends with a quote on the 2010 judgment given by the Allahabad high court on the disputed site at Ayodhya:

Diwali greetings that can be sent along with the prime minister’s quote on the Ayodhya judgement which has been stayed by the Supreme Court

The quote said, “The Ayodhya judgment will work as a catalyst to maintain peace and unity in the country. This judgment has given a respect to belief and self esteem of the people of India, and it should be linked to self esteem of the country.”

Reacting to the judgment in 2010, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat had expressed “satisfaction”, adding, “The judgment has paved the way for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. The judgment is not a win or loss for anybody. We invite everybody, including Muslims, to help build the temple.”

Constructing the Ram temple in Ayodhya was also in the manifesto of the BJP for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls with Modi as the party’s prime ministerial candidate.

So, even if the Supreme Court had put a stay on the judgment and has been hearing some petitions for and against it, this Diwali, if you wish to send an e-card using that quote of the prime minister to express his mind on the issue, you can.

“I think it is not only improper of the prime minister to allow such a quote to feature in an e-card with his name but it is also contempt of court. Being the prime minister of the country, he has to maintain neutrality. As per the constitution, there is separation of the state from religion. So being the prime minister, he can’t possibly allow someone to use that quote of him,” says well-known constitutional expert and senior Supreme Court lawyer Rajeev Dhavan.

Dhavan points out a precedent: “In 1969, the Supreme Court held as contempt a comment made by the then West Bengal chief minister P.C. Sen in a speech aired by All India Radio. The speech was made at a time when someone had challenged an order of the state government on milk production. Sen’s adverse comment supporting the order was presented first in front of the West Bengal High Court which took cognisance of it and termed it contempt of court. Thereafter, the case came to the SC which also termed it contempt of court as the comment was made while the case was pending in the court.”

Swaying public opinion

As per media reports, the comment on the September 30, 2010, HC order was made by Modi, then the Gujarat chief minister, on the same day, before the SC stayed that order in May, 2011.

Dhavan felt, “That he, as the prime minister, is now openly allowing a user to circulate that quote after the SC has begun hearing the case will attract criminal contempt of court as it can be seen as interfering with the working of the judiciary. He can obviously affect public opinion and can be seen as trying to decide the question. It can be seen as usurping the function of the Judiciary by the Executive.”

The traffic directed by the prime minister’s official website to the personal portal can also make use of any Diwali e-greeting card by picking a quote from a category named “political-general”. Many of the quotes under that category are from the prime minister’s multiple attacks on the main opposition party, the Congress, some of which must have been made before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, such as this one: “The UPA government is non-serious, it has taken the people for granted & it is not bothered about the youth. Their approach shows lack of faith in democracy. Our goal is to win the trust of the people & give dignity to them…”

“That the prime minister’s official website links people to surf his personal website where they can send e-cards using anti-opposition quotes of the prime minister is extremely contentious. Whichever party had come to power, there has always been a Chinese wall between the institution of the prime minister and the politician. Unfortunately, both have come together in the current dispensation. The common man doesn’t understand it well, so it is taking advantage of technology to erase that difference,” former Information and Broadcasting minister and Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari said.

Such e-cards are not restricted to Diwali. You can send them on occasions like “Holi, Rakshabandhan, Navaratri, Christmas, Independence Day, Gudi Padwa, Kite Festival, Namo Birthday, Ram Navami, Swami Vivekananda Janma Jayanti” and at any other time by opting for the “political (general)” category.

Narendra Modi implemented the idea of launching e-cards that could go with his quotes in the run-up to the 2014 parliamentary elections. Reports said that “Narendra Modi E-cards” were used by the BJP as a “new marketing strategy” to canvas for its prime ministerial candidate before Holi to bypass the Election Commission of India’s model code of conduct as there was “no mention of rules for social media usage by political parties”.

Meanwhile, those who have signed up for the Narendra Modi mobile app only to send a message to the armed forces have begun receiving regular “infographics” based on the prime minister’s speeches, and also data culled out of news and study reports that are deemed favourable to him and his government. A registered user can further pass on those “infographics” by sharing them on her Facebook page and twitter handle.

The app, though termed “official”, also forwards to a registered user tweets posted only from his personal twitter handle and not from his official handle, @pmoindia. One such tweet that this correspondent received through the app had little to do with the government and entirely with the persona of the politician behind the prime minister. The tweet said, “When @narendramodi demonstrated true leadership at the Patna rally, on this day in 2013…”

Clicking on the link in the tweet takes you to a write-up that talks of the “true grit” of the “BJP’s then prime ministerial candidate” by addressing a rally after a bomb blast in Patna.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-wire-october-29-2016-sangeeta-barooah-pisharoty-behind-modis-heartwarming-diwal-ad-for-soldiers-an-app-that-is-primed-for-political-messaging

Ayodhya trending on Twitter sparks censorship concerns

praskrishna — 2012-12-12T10:38:01Z

On the 20th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition, the ShauryaDiwas, Ayodhya and Babri Masjid hashtags were trending on Twitter all day, with almost 2,500 messages sent over 48 hours.

Surabhi Agarwal's article was published in LiveMint on December 6, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The tag ShauryaDiwas was used by supporters of the demolition and was used in half the total number of tweets.

Experts said the public display of extreme views on a social networking platform has the potential to create social unrest, leaving the government with few options but to regulate content, in turn fuelling the Internet censorship debate further.

A senior government official said that in a situation in which there are serious national security implications, the government has no option but to "block content" in order to stop communal sentiment from flaring up.

According to social web analytics firm Social Hues, the tweets reached an audience of 456,000 followers. However, according to Vinita Ananth, chief executive of Social Hues, there were also messages that "condemned the call for ShauryaDiwas” tagging it ShameDiwas. "New platforms like Twitter are providing real-time feedback on public sentiment, which is unprecedented."

Ashis Nandy, political and social analyst, said that even though very few Indians are on platforms such as Twitter, communications over them give a hint of what a certain section of the society is thinking about.

"It is a small representation of the middle class, which is driven by ideology and some of the people with extreme opinions may also belong to this group, so perhaps it could have some security implications," he said.

Fringe groups such as those above tend to take extreme positions to get attention, said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore-based research organization, the Centre for Internet and Society.

Having learnt their lessons after the recent Assam-related panic, intelligence agencies are now keeping a close watch on the Internet, another government official said.

"If necessary, posts will be removed through legitimate ways," the official said, adding that a debate was underway about how to strike a balance between freedom of speech and the lawful requirement of agencies. "Mischief by a few people creates nuisance in society. The government is now looking for ways through which it can regionally block or remove inflammatory tweets. We don’t want to curb freedom of speech and the government doesn’t have any such intentions either," the official said.

Hate messages on social media had sparked a panic exodus of people from the north-east from cities such as Bangalore, Pune and Chennai in August.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-december-6-2012-surabhi-agarwal-ayodhya-trending-on-twitter-sparks-censorship-concerns

Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked URLs by Department of Telecommunications (IIPM Edition)

snehashish — 2013-02-17T07:35:25Z

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in its order dated February 14, 2013 has issued directions to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block seventy eight URLs. The block order has been issued as a result of a court order. Snehashish Ghosh does a preliminary analysis of the list of websites blocked as per the DoT order.

Medianama has published the DoT order, dated February 14, 2013, on its website.

What has been blocked?

The block order contains seventy eight URLs. Seventy three URLs are related to the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM). The other five URLs contain the term “highcourt”. The order also contains links from reputed news websites and news blogs including The Indian Express, Firstpost, Outlook, Times of India, Economic Times, Kafila and Caravan Magazine, and satire news websites Faking News and Unreal Times. The order also directs blocking of a public notice issued by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The block order does not contain links to any social media website. However, some content related to IIPM has been removed but it finds no mention in the block order. Pursuant to which order or direction such content has been removed remains unclear. For example, Google has removed search results for the terms <Fake IIPM> pursuant to Court orders and it carries the following notice:

"In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org."

Are there any mistakes in the order?

The direction issued by the DoT is once again inaccurate and mired with errors. In effect, the DoT has blocked sixty one unique URLs and the block order contains numerous repetitions. By its order the DoT has directed the ISPs to block an entire blog [http://iipmexposed.blogspot.in] along with URLs to various posts in the same blog.

Reasons for Blocking Websites

According to news reports, the main reason for blocking of websites by the DoT is a Court order issued by a Court in Gwalior. The reason for issuing such a block order might have been a court proceeding with respect to defamation and removal of defamatory content thereof. However, the reasons for blocking of domain names containing the term ‘high court’, which is not at all related to the IIPM Court case is unclear. The DoT by its order has also blocked a link in the website of a internet domain registrar which carried advertisement for the domain name [www.highcourt.com].

Are the blocks legitimate?

The block order may have been issued by the DoT under Rule 10 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009.

The Court order seems to be an interim injunction in a defamation suit. Generally, Courts exercise utmost caution while granting interim injunction in defamation cases. According to the Bonnard Rule (Bonnard v. Perryman, [1891] 2 Ch 269) in a defamation case, “interim injunction should not be awarded unless a defence of justification by the defendant was certain to fail at trial level.” Moreover, in the case of Woodward and Frasier, Lord Denning noted “that it would be unjust to fetter the freedom of expression, when actually a full trial had not taken place, and that if during trial it is proved that the defendant had defamed the plaintiff, then should they be liable to pay the damages.” The Delhi High Court in Tata Sons Ltd. v. Green Peace International followed the Bonnard Rule and the Lord Denning’s judgements and ruled against the award of interim injunction for removal of defamatory content and stated:

“The Court notes that the rule in Bonnard is as applicable in regulating grant of injunctions in claims against defamation, as it was when the judgment was rendered more than a century ago. This is because the Courts, the world over, have set a great value to free speech and its salutary catalyzing effect on public debate and discussion on issues that concern people at large. The issue, which the defendant’s game seeks to address, is also one of public concern. The Court cannot also sit in value judgment over the medium (of expression) chosen by the defendant since in a democracy, speech can include forms such as caricature, lampoon, mime parody and other manifestations of wit.”

Therefore, it appears that the Court order has moved away from the settled principles of law while awarding an interim injunction for blocking of content related to IIPM. It is also interesting to note that in Green Peace International, the Court also answered the question as to whether there should be different standard for posting or publication of defamatory content on the internet. It was observed by the Court that publication is a comprehensive term, ‘embracing all forms and medium – including the Internet’.

Blocking a Public Notice issued by a Statutory Body of Government of India

The block order mentions a URL which contains a public notice issued by University Grants Commission (UGC) related to the derecognition of IIPM as a University. The blocking of a public notice issued by the statutory body of the Government of India is unprecedented. A public notice issued by a statutory body is a function of the State. It can only be blocked or removed by a writ order issued by the High Court or the Supreme Court and only if it offends the Constitution. However, so far, ISPs such as BSNL have not enforced the blocking of this URL.

Implementation of the order by the ISPs

As pointed out in my previous blog post on blocking of websites, the ISPs have again failed to notify their consumers the reasons for the blocking of the URLs. This lack of transparency in the implementation of the block order has a chilling effect on freedom of speech.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analyzing-latest-list-of-blocked-urls-by-dot

Allow admins to add users to online group chats only after permission: SFLC.in

Admin — 2018-06-26T02:03:19Z

SFLC.in -- a donor supported legal services organisation -- has written an open letter to messaging service providers like WhatsApp, Facebook and others, urging them to modify their platforms to ensure that users are not added to group chats without their permission.

The article was published in the Times of India on June 1, 2018.

In its letter, Software Freedom Law Centre, India (SFLC.in) said any user with administrator rights can currently add another person to the group without the latter's permission.

In the absence of a mechanism to prevent themselves from being added to groups that they would not like to participate in, users have no option but to manually exit the groups.

"This is a troubling state of affairs because users may be forcefully exposed to a range of subjectively undesirable content that they would never have signed up for otherwise, which can be particularly damaging, especially in situations where malicious actors attempt to intimidate, disparage, harass or harm individuals in any way," the letter said.

The letter has also been co-signed by Digital Empowerment Foundation, Centre for Internet and Society and a few others.

Emails sent to Facebook, Tencent and others seeking their comments did not elicit any response.

SFLC.in argued that the current format is an issue for many, including those belonging to minority and vulnerable groups.

"While blocking malicious actors can usually help mitigate the damage to an extent, on online messaging services like yours, they are able to easily circumvent blocks by creating groups and adding their targets to these groups," it said.

The problem is only made worse when personal information like phone numbers, user IDs and photographs are shared with a large number of users, which could open the doors to even greater abuse, it added.

SFLC.in argued that there are no adequate safeguards to prevent infringement of user rights and therefore, these platforms should take immediate steps to address this issue.

"...implement measures to make it so that being added to group conversations without permission is no longer a possibility. Not only will this greatly help in limiting abusive uses of your services, but it will also make users less wary of using the services, making the Internet a safer space for us all," it added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-june-1-2018-allow-admins-to-add-users-to-online-group-chats-only-after-permission-sflc-in

Ahead of hosting Modi, Facebook rebrands internet.org as Free Basics

praskrishna — 2015-10-18T14:21:52Z

Hinting at what could be vital points of discussion when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Sunday, the social media giant has rebranded its internet access enabling platform Internet.org as Free Basics.

The article was published by Business Standard on September 26, 2015. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

This was announced by Chris Daniels, vice-president of Internet.org, at a press meet in Menlo Park on Friday. Zuckerberg confirmed the same and wrote on his Facebook wall.

Facebook has opened up its Free Basics platform, which means any app developer can now include their services on it. “This gives people the power to choose what apps they want to use.” Zuckerberg in his post also said the company has improved the security and privacy of Internet.org, which will support HTTPS web services as well. “Connectivity isn't an end in itself. It’s what people do with it that matters. We hope the improvements we've made help even more people get connected — so that our whole global community can benefit together,” Zuckerberg said in his post, in which he quoted the example of a soybean farmer from Maharashtra, Asif Mujhawar, who uses parenting app BabyCenter for free through Internet.org.

This is a significant move by Facebook, considering the backlash it had from various quarters in India following debates on net neutrality. Internet.org is an open platform by Facebook across 19 developing countries, including India, to enable easy access of selected apps and app-based services to people at zero cost. In India, it had partnered with Reliance Communications to offer free access to about 30 websites.

“One of the concerns was calling the service ‘Internet.org’, despite it representing only a tiny sliver of the Internet,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the centre for Internet and Society, a nonprofit entity to promote safe internet access in the country.

He said by removing the Internet word, Facebook is now talking of its own larger internet affordability project and allowing app developers to build apps and host it on the Free Basic platform. “This gives people the power to choose what apps they want to use,” Prakash said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-september-26-2015-ahead-of-hosting-modi-facebook-rebrands-internet-dot-org-as-free-basics

A Three-Way Race Draws Delhi’s Young, and Everyone Else, Out to Vote

praskrishna — 2013-12-26T07:03:54Z

The polling stations were supposed to close at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, just after sunset. But with thousands still waiting in the dark to cast their vote in the state assembly elections, the Delhi Election Commission decided to extend the voting until 6:30 p.m. Then to 7:30 p.m.

The article by Betwa Sharma was published in the New York Times on December 4, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Finally, the Election Commission said it would wait until 9:30 p.m. to close the polls. At the polling station in the New Delhi district, those waiting in line agreed that a relatively warm winter evening was helping to draw people out to vote.

Though no official data on voter turnout had been released by 9 p.m., it was clear that voters were coming out in unprecedented numbers for this year’s Delhi state elections. Analysts were predicting that this election would break the previous voter turnout record of 61.75 percent in 1993.

Unlike in the past, this year’s contest featured a potential spoiler in the Aam Aadmi, or Common Man, Party. Its leader, the firebrand anticorruption activist Arvind Kejriwal, was battling to dethrone the state’s longtime chief minister, Sheila Dikshit of the Congress Party, and siphon votes from the other establishment choice, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P. (Exit polls by the local media on Wednesday night were showing that the B.J.P. was likely to win the most seats in the state assembly.)

The prospect of upending the political status quo brought out young voters like 23-year-old Hina Kousar, although she had to put up a fight with her family to cast her vote for the Aam Aadmi Party. Her mother lectured her on how governments don’t care about people, but that didn’t deter Ms. Kousar.

“They have the wrong mentality, and young people should change it,” she said. “My granny is 70 years old and I told her to vote.”

Many of the youthful voters turned voting into a social activity, both in person and online. At one polling station, most people cast their votes quietly and left, but many of the young voters came with their friends. They talked animatedly about their choices while leaving the polling stations.

Others called their families to say they had voted. Some clicked photos of each other on their smartphones and posted the images on their Facebook pages.

In less than a year, Mr. Kejriwal, 45, and his party has pasted itself quite literally on city’s consciousness with aggressive campaigns and posters of brooms, symbolizing sweeping away the old order. And that’s why he got Ms. Kousar’s vote.

“The most important thing is that he has promised to remove corruption. The money that is going into Swiss banks is our money. The rising market prices are because of it,” she said.

Several voters between the ages of 20 to 25 who were interviewed by India Ink said they were backing Mr. Kejriwal, who represented a change from the three-term winner Ms. Dikshit. The B.J.P. had no star state candidate that appealed to them, even though its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, engaged with students at Delhi University earlier this year and is extremely active on social media.

Besides corruption, several young voters, both male and female, said that ensuring women’s safety had to be a priority for any Delhi government.

Another Kejriwal voter, Kavita, a 27-year-old teacher who goes by one name, said that Ms. Dikshit’s government hadn’t effectively improved women’s safety after the gang rape of a physiotherapy student one year ago. “I don’t feel the difference,” she said. “I still feel unsafe on the streets, so let’s see what some new leaders can do to change this.”

Abhilash Sasidharan, 26, after he cast his vote at a polling booth in New Delhi on Wednesday.Betwa Sharma Abhilash Sasidharan, 26, after he cast his vote at a polling booth in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Another Kejriwal supporter, Abhilash Sasidharan, 27, said a safe environment for women is “absolutely” the most important thing to him, but the software engineer also was moved that Mr. Kejriwal had left his lucrative job as a revenue service officer to join politics.

Kavita, 27, after she cast her vote at a polling booth in New Delhi on Wednesday.

“I don’t have the courage to step into dirty politics, but he does and I want to support that,” he said. “Look, Congress has had 15 years, so why not see if someone can do better, and all these parties should feel a threat to do better.”

But not all young people are buying Mr. Kejriwal’s promises of sweeping change. Shiv Raj Syal, 20, called them “flowery and too good to believe,” as he cast his vote for Ms. Dikshit. “He is just very new at this and I don’t think it’s wise to hand over the running of a national capital to a party with no experience,” he said.

The chief minister had focused on development, the college student said, making Delhi a hub for foreign brands and corporates, and transforming it into an international city.

Abhilash Sasidharan, 26, after he cast his vote at a polling booth in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Despite the appearance of a robust youth presence at the polls on Wednesday, analysts are waiting on the Election Commission’s numbers before declaring this election cycle the year of the youth vote.

Sanjay Kumar, an election analyst from the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, said that as of July, only 68 percent of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 21 had registered to vote, far lower than the 86 percent average of other demographics.

V.S. Sampath, the chief election commissioner in India, said that youth participation in the electoral process had been a priority in recent years, and several efforts including visiting universities and colleges had been made to register them, which had resulted in a “significant increase.”

In 2011, Mr. Sampath said, 119,000 voters between the ages of 18 and 19 were on the electoral rolls in Delhi, which accounted for 0.93 percent of total Delhi voters, but now the numbers had gone up to 405,000, or 3.4 percent.

Election observers have also pointed out that the hype about social media, especially Twitter, becoming a tool for political expression and organization for the youth has not necessarily translated into a surge in voting in that demographic of users.

The political debates on social media could translate into votes by the next elections, according to Sunil Abraham from the Centere of Internet and Society in Bangalore, who describes the Internet penetration as “limited,” and social media use even smaller and dominated by the economic elite.

Mr. Abraham, however, said social media is influencing the political discourse, not by motivating voters, but by influencing the coverage in mainstream media.

Relative to the country’s population, he added, social media users had a “disproportionate influence on discourse.”

But the young voters who spoke to India Ink said that at least for them, social media did play a role in drawing them into politics this year. Mr. Syal, the Congress voter, for instance, said that he had posted a message on his Facebook wall criticizing some of Mr. Kejriwal’s claims, which drew 50 comments.

And Mr. Sasidharan, the Aam Aadmi Party supporter, posted on Facebook a photo of him holding up his finger stained with ink, showing that he voted, immediately after coming out of the polling station. “I hope that it inspires more people to come and vote,” he said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/nytimes-december-4-2013-betwa-sharma-a-three-way-race-draws-delhis-young-and-everyone-else-out-to-vote

A Scam Masquerading as Santa

praskrishna — 2015-12-26T01:23:56Z

Christmas is here and social media is abuzz with celebrations of its spirit.

The article by Apurva Venkat & Vandana Kamath was published in Bangalore Mirror on December 25, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave inputs.

Lurking in the dark though, is an online scam that has been turning expectations of those participating in it into heartache. Secret Santa, a gift exchange programme, has lured many people into its fold. The exchange programme invites people to join a chain of gift givers (and hopeful receivers) through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The promised deal is that every person in the chain stands to get 36 gifts against one that they make.

A person interested in being part of the chain, has to post their agreement on their wall, and invite six more participants. The scheme encourages the person to send a gift valued below Rs 600 to a person whose name and address is at the top of a long list of participants that is sent as a private message. Once they have made the gift, they remove the name of the person in first place, and replace it with the person in the second place. The new recruit then puts their name in the second place of the list.

Social media experts call it as nothing but a pyramid scheme scam. While this has gone viral in the city only recently, the UK and USA governments have already warned their citizens against falling prey to such scams and termed them illegal. While most victims of the scam are sending books as gifts to strangers, there are others who have been gifting cosmetics, chocolates or Christmas gift packs. Of course, most are doing it in the hope of getting back similar gifts.

Chaitanya KM, Kannada film director, who sent a book as a gift under the scheme, told Bangalore Mirror, "I sent one book and seven people have asked me for my address but I have not received anything in return. I haven't heard about this scam but I do not mind gifting a book anyways without getting anything in return." Some hope that Secret Santa will work as an eye opener for city social media users.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of Centre for Internet and Society, said, "This seems to be a rumour to which many are falling prey. This will work like net-user education, and people will get wiser after they are cheated. Some form of awareness needs to be done because at least two per cent of people will respond to this."

Facebook bars it
According to Facebook rules, multi-level marketing on the platform is prohibited. The Facebook agreement terms state that engaging in things like pyramid schemes is not allowed. Also posting personal details on Facebook makes one vulnerable to many more identity fraud that can follow.

IT'S MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE

Not only are pyramid schemes like this one mathematically impossible, they're also against Facebook's terms of use. The list of theoretical participants multiplies into millions of people in just a few steps of Secret Santa. The idea sounds feasible but it is not. Going from step one it starts with six people, who each invite six more, who all send gifts to the person in the number one spot before they're moved off the list. However, as it spreads, the number of people involved increases far more than would ever take part — if the 36 each invite six people then the total number of participants is 216 going on to 1,296 and so on. Only those who start the schemes or enter in the second round stand a chance of receiving something in return and even in that case it is just one gift not 36 as the post claims. Those who join later never ever reach the top of the list.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/a-scam-masquerading-as-santa

A Megacorp’s Basic Instinct

praskrishna — 2016-02-04T13:53:05Z

Bolstered by academia and civil society, TRAI stands its ground against FB’s Free Basics publicity blitz.

The article by Arindam Mukherjee was published in Outlook on February 8, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Hours before the January 31 deadline for telecom regulator TRAI to give its opinion on Facebook’s controversial and expensive Free Basics pitch—which seeks to give India’s poor “free” access to certain partner websites—the consensus seems to be building up against the social media giant. “If there is cannibalising of the internet through services like Free Basics, the internet will be split; it will parcel out and slice the internet. Its future is at stake,” says a senior government official on condition of anonymity.

In a climate where the tech-savvy Modi government is seen to be close to the online trinity of Facebook, Google and Twitter, TRAI’s defiant stance in favour of net neutrality stands out. There’s a lot at stake. India’s position becomes crucial as few countries in the world have clearly defined laws on net neutrality or have taken a stand on it. For Facebook, there’s a lot more at stake. India is its second-largest user base after the US (it is banned in China), so it is leaving no stone unturned. The massive Rs 300-crore electronic and print media campaign is an indication of that.

TRAI sources say they are ready for any adverse onslaught and they are under no pressure from the PMO. The view gaining ground in government is that FB is trying to create a walled garden where it controls what people see and surf and what they can access online. While this will be offered to consumers for free—the technical term is differential pricing—the websites part of Free Basics will have to pay for being on the platform. Outlook’s queries to FB remained unanswered at the time of going to press.

At an ‘open house’ meeting to discuss TRAI’s consultation paper on differential pricing last week, regulator Ram Sevak Sharma stood firm against the barrage of pro-Free Basics opinions that flowed from FB, telecom operators and some members of the public. TRAI’s message was clear: FB’s tactics of moulding public opinion by stealth will not be acceptable in India. In the past few weeks, there have been bitter exchanges between TRAI and FB over the latter’s responses to a consultation paper on differential pricing.

TRAI’s defiant stand draws from an unprecedented show of strength by civil society against Free Basics and FB’s intentions. Says former Aadhar man Nandan Nilekani, “Free Basics is certainly against net neutrality. How can a solution be neutral, if it disproportionately benefits a particular website or business on the internet? Today, 400 million Indians are online. They came online because of the inherent value the internet offers. How can a walled garden of 100-odd websites provide the same value?”

What does Free Basics mean for PM Modi’s Digital India campaign? Being a walled garden, thousands of start-ups without adequate budgets to pay for such dedicated service will be forced to stay out of it. Similar questions are being raised about government services that are increasingly coming online. The concern is that all government traffic will have to pass through FB servers. The senior government official quoted above agrees, “In such a scenario, the government will have to approach FB to make its websites accessible on the free service which is neither desirable nor safe.”

The other fear is what happens to public data if it goes through a service like Free Basics. There is fear that a lot of government and public data will be put through Free Basics once government services start coming online. If Free Basics is for the poor who are also beneficiaries of government services, FB too can access this data. Says Prabir Purkayastha, chairman, Knowledge Commons, “FB says public service will be available through Free Basics but can public service be given through a private initiative? Public data is valuable and can’t be handed over to a private company.”

Few again are convinced by FB’s claim that Free Basics aims to make the internet accessible to the poor, with the many services offered through it. “The claim that the poor will get access to the internet is false,” warns Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. “Free Basics gives access to less than 100 of the one billion plus websites on the world wide web. Those in the walled garden will be treated quite differently.”

What gives TRAI a shot in the arm is that, for the first time, academia has put its weight behind Free Basics opponents. In a signed statement, several IIT and IISc Bangalore professors have said that Free Basics won’t serve the purpose FB is proposing and is not good for the country. “The problem is the internet being provided (via Free Basics) is a shrunken and sanitised version of the real thing. Free Basics is not a good proposal for the long-term development of a healthy and democratic internet setup in India,” says Amitabha Bagchi, IIT Delhi professor and one of the signatories to the memo.

Of course, many of the experts Outlook spoke to say that the government, and not FB, should be responsible for providing free internet to the people. Says Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director, IT for Change, “The government is sitting on Rs 40,000 crore of USO funds. It can surely utilise that to provide a free basic data package to people in India. Basic government services and emergency services should essentially be free.” Nilekani is also in favour of the government providing free internet to people. “The internet is a powerful poverty alleviation tool.... Government can do a direct benefit transfer for data, a more market-neutral way of achieving the goal of getting everyone on the internet,” he told Outlook.

Legally, though, there may be issues in stopping FB from introducing its Free Basics platform in India. Says Singh, “Technically, the Indian government may not be able to stop FB from introducing Free Basics in India as it is just a platform. What the government has to do is to stop telcos from collaborating with it for free internet because Indian telcos, not FB, mediate access to the internet.”

The demand for the government and TRAI to come clean on net neutrality has reached fever pitch. Experts like Nilekani feel that net neutrality, which does not allow zero rating and differential pricing based on telcos looking at the contents of the subscriber’s data packets, should be enshrined in law through an act of Parliament, the way countries like the US have done. TRAI has also proposed two models where the internet is provided free initially and charged at a later stage and another where content providers and websites reimburse the cost of browsing directly to consumers. Both these proposals have not found favour with experts who say that these are unworkable and only the government should disburse free internet.

In any case, all this is a matter of detail—important, no doubt. The key question is, what happens to Free Basics if TRAI rules in favour of net neutrality and goes against FB? “This is going to be a long-drawn-out battle as FB will certainly challenge this in court,” says the government official. After spending Rs 300 crore on publicity, there is no way it will roll over and die.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/outlook-february-8-2016-arindam-mukherjee-a-megacorps-basic-instinct

A 13-year-old's rape in TN highlights the major threat online sexual grooming poses to children

praskrishna — 2017-05-19T10:16:40Z

Predatory paedophiles online pose a major threat to children who form 7% of internet users in India.

The blog post by Priyanka Thirumurthy was published by News Minute on May 6, 2017. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

It was a usual practice, for 13-year-old Meena* from Tirupur to log into her father's Facebook account when she came home from school. While she was scrolling through his timeline one day, she received and accepted a friend request from a profile named Siva Idiot on Facebook. When this 'new friend' sent her a “hi” on chat, the young girl found no reason to ignore this message. Over the next 10 days, they chatted incessantly and she revealed all her personal details - where she lived, studied, who her parents were and even her phone number. Siva Idiot then proceeded to begin calling her on a mobile phone and their conversations lasted hours.

Meanwhile, miffed by her lack of focus on her studies, Meena's parents often chastised her and threatened to take away her laptop and mobile phone. An upset Meena proceeded to complain to Siva Idiot about the 'problems' she faced, who provided emotional support to the teenager. He even offered to come meet her outside her home.

Meena's parents were out in their offices till 8pm every day and Siva Idiot knew this. He met Meena outside her home, when she was still upset about her parents' advice. Her 'friend' then convinced the teenager to leave her house and marry him. Fifteen days after she first spoke to him on Facebook, 13-year-old Meena ran away from home to 'get married' to 22-year-old Ibrahim.

Online sexual grooming

"This is a classic case of sexual grooming," says Vidya Reddy, of Tulir, Centre for Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse. "Abusers study a situation carefully to understand what a child's Achilles heel is and then exploit the situation. Now, with almost every child having accesses to technology and internet in the form of a laptop or phone, these criminals have found new platforms to target children," she adds.

What Vidya explains is called online sexual grooming, a worldwide phenomenon, that has spread along with the speed and easy access to the internet. According to UNICEF, it can be defined as preparing a child or adult for sexual abuse, exploitation or ideological manipulation. A report released by the organisation in 2014 states that the surge in mobile and internet usage in India had brought 400 million people online. Of this, seven percent of internet users in the country are reportedly children.

"Phones are now an extension of our hands and it has completely changed the way crime is committed and presented, " Vidya notes.

Even a report of the Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology in 2014 recognized the threat posed to children by predatory paedophiles online. It emphasises how these predators "conceal their true identity whilst using the internet to ‘groom’ potential victims for sexual purposes."

From home to horror

Meena too was unaware about the identity of the person she was chatting with. In fact, an officer told The News Minute, that it was only when Ibrahim called her on the phone that she even realised she had compromised all her data to an unknown man. But Ibrahim, as the police put it, was too smart for the girl.

"He spoke to her very nicely and formed an emotional connect before she even realised the dangers of the situation," a police officer told The News Minute. "He was just somebody who did odd jobs for a living but his real life was on Facebook. He has close to 5000 friends and they are all young girls," she admits.

On April 27, Ibrahim and Meena made their way to Puducherry, where they took shelter at his friend Prabhakar’s motel. That very night, Meena was allegedly raped. The next morning, Ibrahim's phone somehow came into her possession and when the child surfed through the picture gallery, fresh horror awaited her. It was filled with obscene pictures and videos of young women and children. Shocked, Meena confronted Ibrahim about this and the two got into a loud fight. An angry Ibrahim then abused the teenager who refused to leave with him and abandoned her in the lodge.

When the hotel manager and Ibrahim's friend Prabhakaran came to investigate the source of commotion, he found a devastated Meena alone in the room. In an effort to ‘cheer her up’ he took her out to eat and bought her clothes. As Meena changed in the room, Prabhakaran allegedly waited outside to make his move. He went into the room with a yellow thread in hand, and when she was ready, tied it around her neck and declared that they were married. He then proceeded, according to officials, to sexually assault the girl.

Prabhakaran had even mortgaged all her jewellery, given her some money and pocketed the rest. On April 29, the frightened and devastated teenager managed to escape from the lodge and make a call to her house from a nearby bus stop. By then, her parents had already filed a missing girl complaint with the Tirupur North police and were frantically searching for her.

The need to intervene

According to the UNICEF report, India falls largely short in terms of awareness about online child sexual abuse and exploitation. Parents, it claims, are not aware of the risks the internet poses and therefore do not respond effectively to this form of harassment.

"This case shows that parents and schools have to spend more time educating their wards on online safety. In many schools, non- digital safety lessons are imparted such as good touch and bad touch. But when it comes to the internet, they don't even impart basic lessons," says Pranesh Prakash, Director of the Centre for Internet and Society.

Pranesh argues that while parents cannot monitor children's activity on the internet the whole day, they can ensure they have a trusting relationship with their children. This he claims will create dialogue on the child's activity on the internet or social media and create awareness.

"In this crime, details shared online, led to an offline meeting. So, children must be taught to not share addresses, personal details or meet such 'friends' without their parents' knowledge." he adds.

In India, two major challenges are the lack of a uniform terminology and lacunae in law as far as sexual grooming of children is concerned. Some key legal instruments meant to protect children, predate technological advances. For example, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography does not criminalize online sexual grooming.

Establishing the criminality of sexual grooming or even sexting is difficult in view of the potential for misuse of the law, states the UNICEF report.

Back home and healing

Following her desperate phone call, Tirupur police rescued Meena, and went on to arrest Ibrahim in Pondicherry on April 30. Prabhakaran was arrested on May 2. They have been booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) and other sections of the Indian Penal Code. Police are now investigating if Ibrahim and Prabahakaran have been involved in crimes of this nature in the past as well.

"There is only so much parents can do. They work till eight in the night and children who come back from school at 4pm, have four unsupervised hours to themselves. The only thing they can do is keep a password and stop children from using social media accounts," says the investigating officer, who observes that a number of children chat with strangers, making it difficult to keep track.

Vidya Reddy too expresses shock at sheer number of teenagers who chat with strangers online. The Tulir Director recounts horrific cases, including one where a 16-year-old girl was sexually assaulted and then blackmailed with videos of the abuse. The perpetrator allegedly threatened to leak the images if girl did not bring another child for him to rape.

While sexual grooming and other forms of online sexual abuse are common across the world, in India it takes a unique shape in South Asia. "Our society creates a repressive atmosphere, as far as engagement with the other gender is concerned. So, when the conversation is online, teenagers will risk their safety to push boundaries and the anonymity the internet provides has made this whole set up even more dangerous," concludes Vidya Reddy.

*Name changed

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/newsminute-may-6-2017-a-13-year-olds-rape-in-tn-highlights-the-major-threat-online-sexual-grooming-poses-to-children