Centre for Internet and Society

DoT Blocks Domain Sites — But Reasons and Authority Unclear

smita — 2012-11-21T10:03:39Z

Earlier this year, ISPs such as Airtel and MTNL blocked a number of domain sites including BuyDomains, Fabulous Domains and Sedo.co.uk. Whereas the Indian Government and courts have previously issued orders blocking websites, these actions have generally been attributed to issues such as posting of inflammatory content or piracy of copyrighted material. However, the reasoning behind blocking domain marketplaces such as the above mentioned sites is not clear.

These websites offer users various tools to buy and sell domain names and simplify the purchasing process. Users on India Broad Band forum and websites like Medianama reported that these domain sites were not accessible and the following message was displayed instead — "This website/URL has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to Court orders or on the Directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications".

.In Registry’s Anti-Abuse Policy

If the issue at hand is one of abusive registrations, it would fall under the .IN Domain Anti-abuse Policy adopted by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) and the .in registry. This policy states that NIXI will have the right to "deny, cancel, or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any domain name(s) on registry lock, hold, or similar status" if necessary. This raises a question as to why the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) would issue directions to block these domain marketplaces instead of cancelling their registration or placing it on hold under the policies adopted by NIXI.

A second, more important question would be whether the DoT has the power to block websites or take action under NIXI’s anti-abuse policy. NIXI and the .in registry both work under the aegis of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology. In addition, the Information Technology Act, 2000 ("the IT Act") is the only legislation that provides the authority to block a website and this authority is bestowed upon the Secretary, Department of Information Technology.

Information Technology Act

Section 69-A of the IT Act authorizes the central government to issue directions/orders to block public access to any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource i.e., block websites. Such orders can be issued if the authorized officer finds that it is necessary to do so in the India’s sovereign and national interests or in the interest of public order. These interests include defence, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign neighbours and preventing incitement to the commission of an offence.

The procedures and safeguards that are to be followed before issuing an order to block a website are detailed in the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for blocking for access of information by public) Rules, 2009 ("the rules"). The rules provide that upon receiving a complaint, the concerned organization for the blocking of access to information shall examine the complaint to ensure that there is a need to take action under the reasons mentioned above. If such action is found necessary, a request if forwarded and a committee established as per the rules reviews any requests made to block access to any information. During this review, there is also provision for a notice and reply procedure. This allows for the person controlling the online publication of such information to appear before the committee and respond to the request or make any clarifications regarding the information.

The recommendations of the committee are then sent to the Secretary of the Department of Information Technology who further directs an agency of the government or the intermediary to block the relevant content/website. The rules also provide procedures for blocking access in case of an emergency and in cases where court orders directing the blocking of information have been issued.

Whereas the ideas of sovereign interest and public order are admittedly very broad, there is no clear explanation as to what actions of domain sites/marketplaces such as BuyDomain and sedo.co.uk would be considered to impinge upon either. Neither is there any information available regarding why the DoT considers this to be the case.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dot-blocks-domain-sites

Online Censorship: How Government should Approach Regulation of Speech

sunil — 2012-12-05T07:06:52Z

Why is there a constant brouhaha in India about online censorship? What must be done to address this?

Sunil Abraham's article was published in the Economic Times on December 2, 2012.

Of course, we must get the basics right â€” bad law has to be amended, read down by courts or repealed, and bad implementation of law should be addressed via reform and capacity building for the police. But most importantly those in power must understand how to approach the regulation of speech.

To begin with, speech is regulated across the world. Even in the US â€” contrary to popular impression in India â€” speech is regulated both online and offline.

However, law is not the basis of most of this regulation. Speech is largely regulated by social norms. Different corners of our online and offline society have quite complex forms of self-regulation.

The harm caused by speech is often proportionate to the power of the person speaking â€” it maybe unacceptable for a politician or a filmstar to make an inflammatory remark but that very same utterance from an ordinary citizen may be totally fine.

To complicate matters, the very same speech by the very same person could be harmful or harmless based on context. A newspaper editor may share obscene jokes with friends in a bar, but may not take similar liberties in an editorial.

The legal scholar Alan Dershowitz tells us, "The best answer to bad speech is good speech." More recently the quote has been amended, with "more speech" replacing "good speech".

Censorship by the state has to be reserved for the rarest of rare circumstances. This is because censorship usually results in unintended consequences.

The "Streisand Effect", named after the singer-actor Barbra Streisand, is one of these consequences wherein attempts to hide or censor information only result in wider circulation and greater publicity.

The Maharashtra police's attempt to censor the voices of two women has resulted in their speech being broadcast across the nation on social and mainstream media. If the state had instead focused on producing good speech and more speech, nobody would have even heard of these women.

Circumventing Censorship

Peer-to-peer technologies on the internet mimic the topology of human networks and can also precipitate unintended consequences when subject to regulation. John Gilmore, a respected free software developer, puts it succinctly: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

Most of the internet censorship in the US is due to IPR-enforcement activities. This is why Christopher Soghoian, a leading privacy activist, attributes the massive adoption of privacy-enhancing technologies such as proxies and VPNs (virtual private networks) by American consumers to the crackdown on online piracy.

In India, and even when the government has had legitimate reasons to regulate speech, there have been unintended consequences.

During the exodus of people from the North-east, the five SMS per day restriction imposed by the government resulted in another exodus from SMS to alternative messaging platforms such as BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), WhatsApp and Twitter.

In both cases the circumvention of censorship by the users has resulted in a worsening situation for law-enforcement organisations â€” VPNs and applications like WhatsApp are much more difficult to monitor and regulate.

Mixed Memes

Regulation of speech also cannot be confused with cyber war or security. Speech can occasionally have security implications but that cannot be the basis for enlightened regulation.

A cyber war expert may be tempted to think of censored content as weapons, but unlike weapons that usually remain lethal, content that can cause harm today may become completely harmless tomorrow. This is unlike a computer virus or malware. For example, during the exodus, the online edition of ET featured the complete list of 309 URLs that were in the four block orders issued by the government to ISPs.

However, this did not result in fresh harm, demonstrating the fallacy of cyber war analogies. A cyber security expert, on the other hand, may be tempted to implement a 360Â° blanket surveillance to regulate speech, but as Gilmore again puts it, "If you're watching everybody, you're watching nobody."

In short, if your answer to bad speech is more censorship, more surveillance and more regulation, then as the internet meme goes, "You're Doing It Wrong".

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-december-2-2012-sunil-abraham-online-censorship

We the goondas

praskrishna — 2014-08-04T15:06:18Z

You can now be arrested in Karnataka even before you commit an offence under the IT Act. You could be in jail under the Goonda Act even if not guilty under the Indian Copyright Act. If govt thinks you are planning to send a 'lascivious' photo to a WhatsApp group, or forwarding a copyrighted song, you can be arrested.

The article by Shyam Prasad was published in the Bangalore Mirror on August 4, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

Have a smartphone? Run for cover. Bizarre as this might sound, the cops are going to come after you if you so much as forward a song to a friend. Forget actually doing it, any plans to do so could land you in serious trouble too. You could be labelled a 'goonda' in the eyes of the State and find yourself behind bars.

In a completely unfathomable move, Karnataka has brought most offences under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and Indian Copyright Act, 1957, under the ambit of the Goonda Act. Until now, people with a history of offences like bootlegging, drug offences and immoral trafficking could be taken into preventive custody. But the government, in its enthusiasm, while adding acid attackers and sexual predators to the law, has also added 'digital offenders'. While it was thought to be against audio and video pirates, Bangalore Mirror has found it could be directed at all those who frequent FB, Twitter and the online world, posting casual comments and reactions to events unfolding around them.

So if you are planning a digital 'offence' — which could be an innocuous opinion like the young girls' in Mumbai after the bandh declared on Bal Thackeray's death — that could attract the provisions of the Information Technology Act. You can even be taken into preventive custody like a 'goonda'. Even those given exceptions under the Indian Copyright Act can find themselves in jail for a year without being presented before a magistrate. Technically, if you are even planning to forward 'lascivious' memes and images to a WhatsApp group or forwarding a song or 'copyrighted' PDF book, you can be punished under the Goondas Act.

The law-makers clearly did not dwell much on the implications while bringing the majority of the populace within the ambit of this law. On July 28, the Karnataka Legislature passed (it took barely a minute from tabling to voice vote), 'The Karnataka Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug-offenders, Gamblers, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Slum-grabbers and Video or Audio Pirates, (Amendment) Bill, 2014'. The amendment adds, "Acid attackers, Depradator of Environment, Digital Offenders, Money Launderers and Sexual Predators", to the title. In common parlance, this law is known as the 'Goonda Act'.

The move has come as a shock to the legal community which has slammed it, terming it an attempt by the state to usurp central powers. The government had earlier included 'piracy' under the Goonda Act. But it was applicable only to those pirating film DVDs. Now, this will include books, film songs, music, software or anything big corporates and multinationals claim they have copyright on.

Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet and Society, is left in no doubt that the new law is "a terrible thing". "It is a sad development. It is not just bringing the provisions of the IT Act, but also the Copyright Act, that will hurt the common man," he said.

'Digital Offenders' means "any person who knowingly or deliberately violates, for commercial purposes, any copyright law in relation to any book, music, film, software, artistic or scientific work and also includes any person who illegally enters through the identity of another user and illegally uses any computer or digital network for pecuniary gain for himself or any other person or commits any of the offences specified under sections 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74 and 75 of the Information Technology Act, 2000."

Section 67 of the IT Act will be the most dangerous for the common man with a smartphone in hand now. The section, "Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form," includes "any material which is lascivious or appeal to the prurient interest." This could have a very broad interpretation.

Advocate Nagendra Naik says, "The Goonda Act provides for preventive arrest. In the Information Technology Act and The Copyright Act, you have to commit the offence to be arrested. But here, you can be taken into preventive custody even before you commit the said offences. In normal arrests, you can straightaway apply for bail. But under the Goonda Act, you cannot. There is a long process of review and you will be in custody at least till then. The third impact is, you can have a history sheet started against you by the police. Technically, your slips on WhatsApp will attract the Goonda Act against you."

Supreme Court advocate KV Dhananjay said the Goonda Act is a draconian piece of legislation and it necessarily mocks at the institution of courts and lawyers. "After the passage of the various amendments to the Goonda Act, Karnataka now looks like a mini North Korea where police mood swings will decide whether the ordinary citizen has any right at all," he said.

Advocate Shyam Sundar, says, "What if your smartphone has a list of repeated material sent out over days or weeks. Most people do not even know if their phones are affected by viruses which could be sending out such material. Another example is of Facebook. There are so many FB pages with pornographic content. If someone who has subscribed to such a page sends you a friend request and you accept it, that content will surface on your page. It will have a history of repetition. The amendment clearly opens up huge problems for the common people. There is no doubt of the law being grossly misused and the amendment to include provisions of the IT Act has been done without application of mind. What is lascivious appeal in the first place? A porn star has been made a film star in India. Is this not lust? Are there enough filters in place to secure your smartphone from online abuse?"

The new law will in all probability create more corruption than anything else, say experts. Dhananjay says, "Until last week, police postings in Bangalore and other bigger cities were selling for tens of lakhs. Thanks to these amendments, some postings that enforce the Goonda Act will now sell for a couple of crores. The public will not feel safe due to this draconian legislation. Those who enforce the Goonda Act, however, will become richer through corruption, thanks to the fear created by these new amendments."

One year in jail for the innocent too

Sunil Abraham gives two examples by which the amended Goonda Act will become a ruthless piece of legislation. "If I publish an image of a naked body as part of a scientific article about the human body, is it obscene or not? It will not be obscene and, if I am arrested under the IT Act, I will be produced before the magistrate within 24 hours and can explain it to him. But now, I will be arrested under the Goonda Act and need not be produced before a magistrate for 90 days. It can be extended to one year. So for one year, I will be in jail even if I have not committed any wrong. Another example pertains to bringing offences under the Copyright Act under the Goonda Act. In the Copyright Act, there is an exception for reporting, research, educational and people with disability. A visually impaired person, for example, can, without paying royalty, convert a book into another format like Braille or audio and share it with another visually impaired person on a non-profit basis. But if he is arrested under Goonda Act, he will be in jail for one year, even before he does it."

HAVE THEY READ STATUTE?
Supreme Court advocate KV Dhananjay says, "The definition of a 'digital offender' is simply laughable. I do not think that whoever asked the state government to include 'digital offence' under the Goonda Act has carefully read the Constitution of India. Under the Constitution, both copyright and telecommunications are exclusive central subjects. This means that states simply cannot make any law on these subjects." Dhananjay gives the example of payment of income tax. "You know already that only the central government can demand and collect your income taxes. Can any state government say that it will create a new law to punish its resident who defaults in payment of income tax? You would simply laugh at any such law. This new definition of 'digital offender' is no less amusing. Offences under the Information Technology Act, 2000, are exclusively punishable by the central government only. State governments have no power to say that an Act shall become an offence when it does not even have the power to regulate such an Act."

CRIMINAL LAW EXPERTS SAY
Senior designate advocate, MT Nanaiah: "This law will be too harsh. There are MLAs who do not know the meaning of cyber crime. We (advocates) will be kept busy at the cost of innocent people because of this step. It provides for arresting anyone who would allegedly be planning to do something. Finding him guilty or otherwise comes later. What happens if your phone is lost or somebody sends something from your phone without your knowledge? For the first few years, innocents will go to jail. Then the courts will probably intervene and call for modifying what is at best a bad law. A similar situation arose with Section 498(A) of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of Dowry Prohibition Act. It was misused to such an extent that courts had to step in." Senior designate advocate and former State Public Prosecutor HS Chandramouli : "Even social legislations have been misused. And, in this case, most people are illiterate about what cyber crime is. It is mostly teenagers and college students who will feel the heat. These are the people who mostly forward material considered obscene. It is necessary to educate people through discussions, workshops in the bar associations, law college and with experts. The amendment has been passed in the Legislature without discussion, which is a tragedy. At least now, before it is gazetted, people should be warned about what is being brought into the Goonda Act. I do not know how fair adding 'digital offenders' in the Goonda Act will be to the public, but the chances of misuse are more. There are no riders or prosecution for misuse. And how many policemen know about cyber crimes? During the infamous 'kidney' case (where people were cheated and their kidneys removed) many policemen did not know the difference between kidneys and testicles."

ONE YEAR IN JAIL WITHOUT CHANCE OF BAIL FOR..

Forwarding a song from your phone
Forwarding an e-book from your email
A nude photo which the govt thinks is obscene
Any software that a company says it owns
A movie which a company says it has copyright on

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/bangalore-mirror-shyam-prasad-august-4-2014-we-the-goondas

The Case of Whatsapp Group Admins

Japreet Grewal — 2015-12-08T10:25:42Z

Censorship laws in India have now roped in group administrators of chat groups on instant messaging platforms such as Whatsapp (group admin(s)) for allegedly objectionable content that was posted by other users of these chat groups. Several incidents[1] were reported this year where group admins were arrested in different parts of the country for allowing content that was allegedly objectionable under law. A few reports mentioned that these arrests were made under Section 153A[2] read with Section 34[3] of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 67[4] of the Information Technology Act (IT Act).

Targeting of a group admin for content posted by other members of a chat group has raised concerns about how this liability is imputed. Whether a group admin should be considered an intermediary under Section 2 (w) of the IT Act? If yes, whether a group admin would be protected from such liability?

Group admin as an intermediary

Whatsapp is an instant messaging platform which can be used for mass communication by opting to create a chat group. A chat group is a feature on Whatsapp that allows joint participation of Whatsapp users. The number of Whatsapp users on a single chat group can be up to 100. Every chat group has one or more group admins who control participation in the group by deleting or adding people. [5] It is imperative that we understand that by choosing to create a chat group on Whatsapp whether a group admin can become liable for content posted by other members of the chat group.

Section 34 of the IPC provides that when a number of persons engage in a criminal act with a common intention, each person is made liable as if he alone did the act. Common intention implies a pre-arranged plan and acting in concert pursuant to the plan. It is interesting to note that group admins have been arrested under Section 153A on the ground that a group admin and a member posting content on a chat group that is actionable under this provision have common intention to post such content on the group. But would this hold true when for instance, a group admin creates a chat group for posting lawful content (say, for matchmaking purposes) and a member of the chat group posts content which is actionable under law (say, posting a video abusing Dalit women)? Common intention can be established by direct evidence or inferred from conduct or surrounding circumstances or from any incriminating facts.[6]

We need to understand whether common intention can be established in case of a user merely acting as a group admin. For this purpose it is necessary to see how a group admin contributes to a chat group and whether he acts as an intermediary.

We know that parameters for determining an intermediary differ across jurisdictions and most global organisations have categorised them based on their role or technical functions.[7] Section 2 (w) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) defines an intermediary as any person, who on behalf of another person, receives, stores or transmits messages or provides any service with respect to that message and includes the telecom services providers, network providers, internet service providers, web-hosting service providers, search engines, online payment sites, online-auction sites, online marketplaces and cyber cafés. Does a group admin receive, store or transmit messages on behalf of group participants or provide any service with respect to messages of group participants or falls in any category mentioned in the definition? Whatsapp does not allow a group admin to receive, or store on behalf of another participant on a chat group. Every group member independently controls his posts on the group. However, a group admin helps in transmitting messages of another participant to the group by allowing the participant to be a part of the group thus effectively providing service in respect of messages. A group admin therefore, should be considered an intermediary. However his contribution to the chat group is limited to allowing participation but this is discussed in further detail in the section below.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in a 2010 report[8], an internet intermediary brings together or facilitates transactions between third parties on the Internet. It gives access to, hosts, transmits and indexes content, products and services originated by third parties on the Internet or provide Internet-based services to third parties. A Whatsapp chat group allows people who are not on your list to interact with you if they are on the group admins’ contact list. In facilitating this interaction, according to the OECD definition, a group admin may be considered an intermediary.

Liability as an intermediary

Section 79 (1) of the IT Act protects an intermediary from any liability under any law in force (for instance, liability under Section 153A pursuant to the rule laid down in Section 34 of IPC) if an intermediary fulfils certain conditions laid down therein. An intermediary is required to carry out certain due diligence obligations laid down in Rule 3 of the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 (Rules). These obligations include monitoring content that infringes intellectual property, threatens national security or public order, or is obscene or defamatory or violates any law in force (Rule 3(2)).[9] An intermediary is liable for publishing or hosting such user generated content, however, as mentioned earlier, this liability is conditional. Section 79 of IT Act states that an intermediary would be liable only if it initiates transmission, selects receiver of the transmission and selects or modifies information contained in the transmission that falls under any category mentioned in Rule 3 (2) of the Rules. While we know that a group admin has the ability to facilitate sharing of information and select receivers of such information, he has no direct editorial control over the information shared. Group admins can only remove members but cannot remove or modify the content posted by members of the chat group. An intermediary is liable in the event it fails to comply with due diligence obligations laid down under rule 3 (2) and 3 (3) of the Rules however, since a group admin lacks the authority to initiate transmission himself and control content, he can’t comply with these obligations. Therefore, a group admin would be protected from any liability arising out of third party/user generated content on his group pursuant to Section 79 of the IT Act.

It is however relevant to note whether the ability of a group admin to remove participants amounts to an indirect form of editorial control.

Other pertinent observations

In several reports[10] there have been discussions about how holding a group admin liable makes the process convenient as it is difficult to locate all the users of a particular group. This reasoning may not be correct as the Whatsapp policy[11] makes it mandatory for a prospective user to provide his mobile number in order to use the platform and no additional information is collected from group admins which may justify why group admins are targeted. Investigation agencies can access mobile numbers of Whatsapp users and gain more information from telecom companies.

It is also interesting to note that the group admins were arrested after a user or someone familiar to a user filed a complaint with the police about content being objectionable or hurtful. Earlier this year, the apex court had ruled in the case of Shreya Singhal v. Union of India[12] that an intermediary needed a court order or a government notification for taking down information. With actions taken against group admins on mere complaints filed by anyone, it is clear that the law enforcement officials have been overriding the mandate of the court.

Conclusion

According to a study conducted by a global research consultancy, TNS Global, around 38 % of internet users in India use instant messaging applications such as Snapchat and Whatsapp on a daily basis, Whatsapp being the most widely used application. These figures indicate the scale of impact that arrests of group admins may have on our daily communication.

It is noteworthy that categorising a group admin as an intermediary would effectively make the Rules applicable to all Whatsapp users intending to create groups and make it difficult to enforce and would perhaps blur the distinction between users and intermediaries.

The critical question however is whether a chat group is considered a part of the bundle of services that Whatsapp offers to its users and not as an independent platform that makes a group admin a separate entity. Also, would it be correct to draw comparison of a Whatsapp group chat with a conference call on Skype or sharing a Google document with edit rights to understand the domain in which censorship laws are penetrating today?

Valuable contribution by Pranesh Prakash and Geetha Hariharan

[1] http://www.nagpurtoday.in/whatsapp-admin-held-for-hurting-religious-sentiment/06250951 ; http://www.catchnews.com/raipur-news/whatsapp-group-admin-arrested-for-spreading-obscene-video-of-mahatma-gandhi-1440835156.html ; http://www.financialexpress.com/article/india-news/whatsapp-group-admin-along-with-3-members-arrested-for-objectionable-content/147887/

[2] Section 153A. “Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.— (1) Whoever— (a) by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, promotes or attempts to promote, on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities…” or 2) Whoever commits an offence specified in sub-section (1) in any place of worship or in any assembly engaged in the performance of religious worship or religious ceremonies, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to five years and shall also be liable to fine.

[3] Section 34. Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention – When a criminal act is done by several persons in furtherance of common intention of all, each of such persons is liable for that act in the same manner as if it were done by him alone.

[4] Section 67 Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form. -Whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it, shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees and in the event of a second or subsequent conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and also with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees."

[5] https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/21073373

[6] Pandurang v. State of Hyderabad AIR 1955 SC 216

[7]https://www.eff.org/files/2015/07/08/manila_principles_background_paper.pdf; http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002311/231162e.pdf

[8] http://www.oecd.org/internet/ieconomy/44949023.pdf

[9] Rule 3(2) (b) of the Rules

[10]http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/if-you-are-a-whatsapp-group-admin-better-be-careful/article7531350.ece; http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/Social-Media-Administrator-You-Could-Land-in-Trouble/2015/10/10/article3071815.ece; http://www.medianama.com/2015/10/223-whatsapp-group-admin-arrest/; http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/whatsapp-group-admin-you-are-intermediary-and-here%E2%80%99s-what-you-need-know-35031

[11] https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/

[12] http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/FileServer/2015-03-24_1427183283.pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-case-of-whatsapp-group-admins

Facebook, Google deny spying access

praskrishna — 2013-07-02T10:18:48Z

The CEOs of Facebook and Google on Saturday categorically denied that the US National Security Agency had "direct access" to their company servers for snooping on Gmail and Facebook users. But both acknowledged that the companies complied with the 'lawful' requests made by the US government and shared user data with sleuths.

The article by Javed Anwer was published in the Times of India on June 9, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

In a post titled "What the ...?" Google's official blog, CEO Larry Page wrote, "We have not joined any program that would give the US governmentâ€”or any other governmentâ€”direct access to our servers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday."

A few hours later, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded. "Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers... We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday," he wrote on his page at the social media site.

According to a few PowerPoint slides allegedly leaked by an NSA official, nine technology companies - Google, AOL, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype, Facebook, YouTube and PalTalk - are providing the US government easy access to user data. While all companies have denied being part anything called PRISM, Facebook and Google have been most vocal about it.

A few hours after Facebook and Google statements, the New York Times said in a report that technology companies had "opened discussions with national security officials about developing technical methods to more efficiently and securely share the personal data of foreign users".

"In some cases, they (companies) changed their computer systems to do so," noted the NYT report.

The statements by the CEOs have done little to allay privacy fears. "The denials from the companies look highly coordinated, including similar phrases in all their responses. I don't think they are lying outright, though the NYT report suggests that they are telling a half-truth. They may not provide the US government 'direct access' to all their servers, but may be providing indirect access, or may just be responding to very broad FISA orders," said Pranesh Prakash, a policy director with Centre for Internet and Society in India.

On Friday US president Barack Obama had tacitly acknowledged NSA surveillance programmes aimed at non-US citizens. "You can't have a hundred per cent security and also then have a hundred per cent privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we're going to have to make some choices as a society," he told reporters in the US.

Page and Zuckerberg also called on the governments to be more open about surveillance programmes. "The level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish," wrote Page.

Added Zuckerberg, "We strongly encourage all governments to be much more transparent about all programs aimed at keeping the public safe. It's the only way to protect everyone's civil liberties and create the safe and free society we all want over the long term."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-javed-anwer-june-9-2013-facebook-google-deny-spying-access

Negative of porn

namita — 2011-08-02T08:35:34Z

The post deals with what has been written about Savita Bhabhi in an attempt to make sense of her peccadiloes and with the seeming futility of Porn studies located in America to our different reality. I take the liberty of exploring my own experiential account of pornography since I feel that in that account (mine and others) when done seriously, certain aspects of pornography emerge that address questions that are about cinema, images, sex, philosophy and how desire works. The title is mischeviously inspired from Dr. Pek Van Andel's recent video of MRI images of people having sex.

Jonathan James McCreadie Lillie in his article “Cyberporn, Sexuality and the Net Apparatus” while talking about academic engagement with pornography (by Kipnis, Hunt, Waugh, Kendrick) points to how they share “a common concern with analysing pornography within the various cultural constructs and social spaces in which it appears, and in which people encounter it”. He says that a new agenda for cyberporn research has to acknowledge that “people have produced pornography in many different forms for many different purposes, and the reasons why people use it or do not use it, and what meanings they make of it, are equally diverse”. (1)

Lillie points towards cyberporn reception studies – the home/office terminal as a site of cyberporn reception – as a possible starting point of further work on cyberporn. My interest is located in how does one understand your own consumption of internet porn, located as it is in the context that is not the global North and more specifically not male and not heterosexual. Attempting to do that through the readings in porn studies (Porn studies, edited by Linda Williams) (2), or specifically net porn studies (C’lick me – Net Porn Reader) (3), has not been entirely fruitful though what is talked about is highly interesting. One of the problems perhaps lies in what Lillie says about the need for analyzing pornography within the various cultural constructs and social spaces in which it appears, rather than separate or floating above them. The Internet does not entirely make protean beings (cyborgs?) of us after all, and the relevance of porn studies elsewhere can only be partially relevant to a study here.

[Curiously though the debates within feminism and the women’s movement around pornography in the global North – the familiar rhetoric of the causal links between pornography and violence, do have a resonance in similar debates in the women’s movement here. At a roundtable discussion on the role of media at the recent Courts of Women organized by Vimochana (4), many of the sentiments expressed by activists and organizations see a causal link between explicit sexual material, violence and its direct negative impact on morals, attitudes and behaviour of people.]

Linda Williams begins the volume on Porn Studies by stating that there has been a movement from the deadlock of pro-censorship and sex positive feminist discourse on pornography, to a stage where there is a veritable explosion of sexual material that is crying out for analysis, and that sexually explicit imagery is a fixture in popular culture today (obviously referring to America but to some extent true for other contexts as well). In some ways there is an attempt amongst academics, intellectuals, journalists and other writers here to make sense of the pornographic material that has crept into our media saturated cities. Many recent articles spawned by the ban on Savita Bhabhi attempt to understand the unleashing of desire around Savita Bhabhi (from a rock song to unashamed fandom) and to analyse the reasons for the ban or rather what makes Savita Bhabhi threatening.

Savita Bhabhi, the [porn] [toon] [star]

Itty Abraham undertakes a fairly detailed analysis of what is happening in twelve episodes of Savita Bhabhi and perhaps unconvincingly places the crux of the story of Savita Bhabhi on her cuckolded husband, Ashok (5). He says “Their family life is relentless modern, nuclear, bourgeois, if also gendered in familiar ways. The couple eats together (and at the same time), they watch TV together in the evenings, and sleep in the same bed.” For Abraham, the comic is about “these new sexual possibilities.. that begin from a new kind of freedom to which the modern urban woman has access”. The article suggests that we seem to be faced with a choice between the free untrammeled Savita and her easy occupation of urban spaces protected by an aura of class and her husband Ashok who is the hard worker earning enough to keep alive her/our illusion of abundant urban neoliberal existence. Interestingly the article is not attempting to make a point about pornography in relation to ideas of culture, tradition, vulgarity or other familiar motifs in the debate on obscenity.

Shohini Ghosh’s article takes on the task to find out what precisely is so transgressive about Savita Bhabhi (6). Savita Bhabhi is poised between the family and husband and illegitimate desires (similar to themes in Charulata, Hum aapke hain kaun). She points that the pleasure of the comic is not just that there are hard core sexual scenes as much as that the husband or a similar character cannot look at what you look at. The Indian erotica (or pornographic text) scene too is replete with tales of incest and transgressions with domestic workers or servants|maids as they are called in the stories. Ghosh while acknowledging the harm-violence debate within feminism on pornography, states that she is anti-censorship – that although it is obvious that media, images have an impact (otherwise why would they be cause of study) there is no neat causal link between porn and sexual violence. She ends by saying that “pornography then is a phantasmatic arena. It does not reflect people’s ‘real’ sex lives so much as it articulates the desires and aspirations for imagined ones.”

Both articles make important linkages to other and pre-existing debates on neo-liberal agendas, occupation of urban spaces, feminism and obscenity. Ghosh seems to also be referring to a broader category of Indian porn and the problems posed by it. She also gestures towards the problems that might be posed if Savita Bhabhi were a real person and not a comic, but by and large most journalistic writing/analysis of Savita Bhabhi flattens out the field – asking questions as if comic characters were real persons, and not taking into account aesthetics, technology (mode of delivery) or where and how it is viewed (reception) by people. There is a difference in the way I respond to a comic about sex than to an MMS or hidden camera porn where I am aware of the ‘realness’ of atleast some aspects of the image I’m looking at.

The ‘realness’ raises certain dilemmas – the anxiety is not as severe and troubled as in the case of Mysore Mallige which is haunted by urban legends of the couples or only the woman committing suicide, forced marriage at a police station etc. Nonetheless to encounter the MMS video, when the woman is looking directly at the camera often so it does not seem like a hidden camera or non-consensual video, is to acknowledge the taking of pleasure at the expense of someone else which may or may not bother you, but does render the activity far more illicit and scary. My feeling of fear|anxiety|secrecy|aloneness when surfing pornography, whether in the office, home or anywhere where I can be discovered, is an added layer to the experience even if the various aspects of violation of privacy, vulnerability of the woman in the video or the existence of a pornography industry are not uppermost in the mind when actually viewing the clips. One of the few works done that do address this complicated set of affects that circulate and attach themselves to pornography is Bharath Murthy’s film on Mysore Mallige ( the next post will be on this film and interview with Bharath Murthy). (7)

This is why I would insist that the comic is a different space for a viewer – some things such as anxieties about who this person I’m looking at is and what happened to her do disappear, while others such as a comic is bright, colourful and highly visible on my computer screen (for instance) become more important. It is harder to hide surfing Savita Bhabhi in an office than reading erotica or even downloading and discreetly watching a small video. The aspect of how Savita Bhabhi being a comic/drawn character changes how a viewer relates to the material is an area of study that needs to be looked at more closely, perhaps with the help of existing work that looks at the manga, anime, hentaii phenomenon in Japan and parts of South East Asia.

The makers of Savita Bhabhi were anonymous till the ban and after what seemed like a rather brief struggle with authority (SaveSavita campaign on twitter and a blog) they vacated the public scene. As a consequence of no real contest, the ban persists. But perhaps what is admirable is that many people have learnt to use tools that allow them to still view Savita (and to expose them here would be just foolhardy). In an interview online the makers of Savita Bhabhi state .. “For one, it (comic) is a unique medium in the context of Indian porn. We’ve had MMS’s, videos, stories, etc, but no porn comics. Also a comic allows us to explore the fantasy in a much more vivid way than any other medium.” This fantasy life however cannot be dismissed, as it is indeed very real, or as they say – “based on real life fantasies of our authors and fans. They are all something that a normal full blooded Indian male or female would be fantasizing about on their commute to work or a lazy evening at home.” In a short interview with the makers of the comic more recently and subsequent to the ban they said that probably it was Savita Bhabhi’s popularity that led to her downfall and that they set out to explore Indian sexuality, which “obviously is a big No”.

To return to Lillie’s call for a cyberporn reception studies perhaps it is time in relation to looking at such material that we step away, even if briefly, from these debates on feminism, vulgarity and obscenity in Indian culture and others. In an interview dated 5th September, 2009, Ratheesh Radhakrishnan says that what needs to be looked at when studying pornography, is not the questions of Indian culture, religion, roles of women and gender (as for questions related to obscenity) but the aesthetics of pornography. In his own work Radhakrishnan deals precisely with this question in relation to the category of ‘soft porn’ and how Shakeela becomes a star through soft porn cinema – a star not entirely governed by the narrative of the film but seemingly existing beyond the limit of the film itself. (8) By doing this, his work deals with the question of how desire works in such films, which perhaps is one of the more important question to ask about pornography. In the same interview, he states that there is “something that takes place between the text and the person watching” and that is what he is interested in.

Anti-porn

Radhakrishnan’s position is interesting in relation to this project as it opens up questions that are beyond the feminist deadlock on pornography and also goes beyond rhetoric of the liberating potential of the explosion of the polymorphous perverse online. The latter is where a lot of porn studies undertaken in the global North seems to get lost. The breathless recounting of the pornographic in the everyday, does not help since it becomes very obvious that any analysis would not be relevant to a vastly different context in India. (9)

Walter Metz in his article on Open Water (10) challenges the ethics of porn studies – though he acknowledges that pornography is more a symptom rather than a cause of anti-social behaviours that it is often linked to (violent rape, aggressive behaviour, sexism etc.), but still raises the question as to whether there are significant reasons to put the brakes on a rabid, radical celebration of the liberating potential of pornography. Metz talks about the need, within porn studies, to look at the positive and negative impact of pornography (possibly he would extend that to looking at violent martial arts film and other strands of cinema/new media).

Metz’s paper as such deals with Open Water as an anti-pornographic film (here referring to the generic practice of pornography rather than political positions) and this might be an interesting productive mode to understand the affect produced by pornography. Though Metz qualifies that he’s not using pornography as a genre, but rather “as a reading frame. If one keeps thinking about pornography while watching a non-pornographic film, what is the resulting interpretation?” Since I haven’t seen the film Open Water perhaps my interest in such an analysis is misfounded. Metz describes the frustration depicted in the film Open Water between the audience expectations for a reasonably good looking, tanned, blonde couple to get-it-on and what happens to their bodies instead in the open water of the sea and prey to sharks, is similar to the disjuncture that takes place in one of the films part of the Destricted project. (11)

Destricted is an interesting artistic|intellectual|new media|film experiments in the global North around pornography. It is a series of short films that resulted from an invitation to seven well known artists and filmmakers to try to respond to sex and especially the phenomenon of pornography in the contemporary. One of the films Death Valley by Sam Taylor-Wood borrows from the Biblical tale of Onan and places a man masturbating in the heaving, throbbing landscape of the Death Valley (the hottest place in the Western hemisphere where the earth’s crust is constantly changing and shifting). For precisely 7 minutes and 58 seconds, the protagonist of the film masturbates uncomfortably without reaching ejaculation and/or release. The painful un-release of this film, perhaps is meant to be juxtaposed with the assumed ease of pornography’s answer to desire. However peculiarly it actually is probably an accurate description of the experiential account of pornography – of looking, searching, finding, downloading on painfully low speeds, watching short clips that are blurred, shot only from one angle, badly drawn comics or looking at largely uninspiring material which is not acquired or found easily.

In some ways the experience of watching either of these films sounds similar to watching certain kinds of MMS video porn. For instance, one video was of a couple doing oral sex in a toilet cubicle. The angle of the camera was from the top and perhaps the intention behind this was to obscure the faces of the two persons, since only the top of their heads are visible. It did not seem like the couple were unaware of the video camera, as much as performing for it almost unwillingly and only if the anonymity was preserved. The video was low quality and highly blurred, to the point of any features being indistinct beyond blackness of hair (maybe) and generic skin tone which could be Indian, Iranian or generic South Asian. The resemblance to the Destricted video is because again of the time it takes to reach ejaculation – there is a painfully long uninspiring blowjob sequence. The video remains scary and leaves one with a feeling of claustrophobia, discomfort and peculiarly boredom or distance from what is happening. Yet perhaps it is here that the question of realness and the affect it produces enters again. The question that intrigues me is whether the affect produced by the video is because there are certain gestures of the woman that seem recognizable, because she seems like you (ethnically, racially ofcourse but also in sexual spaces she occupies and behaviour). After having accomplished the task of coaxing semen out of the uninspiring penis she is faced with, she folds her legs and speaks indistinctly. In that moment she seems uncomfortably familiar, like watching a friend having sex or maybe an aspect of yourself.

It is perhaps interesting that it is amateur pornography these days that seems to inspire the most complicated set of affects (unlike the schooled|disciplined and predictable response to cinema) – shocked recognition of yourself and desire to see it again, titillation, boredom but yet unwilling to look away, love for celebrities, pleasure of viewing a body like yours and even sometimes a recognition that this is what you look like during sex, fear about your own privacy, disgust for what seems unacceptable and provokes the moral|visual|auditory sensibilities and contempt for the material and the people who possibly are genuinely engaged with it. The article on Pam and Tommy’s video in Porn Studies infact displays these varied affects and underlines William’s assertion that this bracket of material, behaviour and practices that get termed pornography/pornographic does indeed deserve analysis, otherwise a potentially unique and interesting way of understanding the contemporary would be lost for squeamishness.

There are many aspects of the Minette Hillyer’s analysis (12) that are specifically relevant only to the American contexts – the notoriety of both the stars, the pre-existence and glorification of home videos in most families and the acknowledgement of amateur couple porn as even a healthy practice, perhaps suggested for couples with dull sex lives. In India, it was infact unknown people who were catapulted into the public eye with the circulation of their video, online and offline that was later titled Mysore Mallige ; not just the private spaces, holidays and fucking habits of already-celebrities like Pam and Tommy.

What might be relevant here from Hillyer’s analysis is the pre occupation with the realness of amateur pornography. The article follows the travels of the Pam and Tommy home video between different categories/genres, depending on different aspects of its realness. The video as such, contains scenes from the normal domestic lives of the stars and a eight minute sequence of sex in an almost fifty minute length video. So the questions of realness are answered not by the sex in the video, but the mundane recording of their lives, holidays, house and other details. This question of what exactly it is – home video or pornography (domestic/private or pornographic/public) is relevant to questions of legality (for damages upto 90 million dollars), how it circulates (a pornographic video of Pam and Tommy without the domestic padding perhaps would not be considered real and saleable) and genre which relates to some aspects of how people respond to the work. Ever since the advent of (cheap) video technology, pornography is rendered less cinematic and more concerned with the presentational act (of sex) than its representation (ibid). With MMS videos and hidden camera porn, though questions may no longer be about representation, they are still complicated questions about the aesthetics, reception of pornography and our relation to the technology that delivers it and for me viewing pornography today as only presentational does not help to understand the affects that surround and attach to it. Perhaps many strands of what is explored in this article can be explored in relation to Mysore Mallige in the next blog post.

Just as I finish this piece, after an interview with Nishant Shah at Center for Internet and Society, another question enters the frame in relation to pleasure, moving it beyond those raised above. Is pleasure now a question that is less about finding the corporeal thrill through pornography online, as much as pleasure that comes from simulation and the added rush of simulating cities, lives, personalities online. And is that pleasure, pornographic?

End notes:

1. Jonathan James McCreadie Lillie, “Cyberporn, Sexuality, and the Net Apparatus”, Convergence 2004; 10; 43

2. Williams Linda (ed), Porn Studies, Duke University Press, London and Durham, 2004.

3. Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen, Matteo Pasquinelli (eds), C’lick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2007.

4. Courts of Women, Vimochana Bangalore, 27-29 July, 2009.

5. Itty Abraham, Sex in the Neo-liberal City: On Savita Bhabhi, Available at The Fish Pond at http://thefishpond.in/itty/2009/on-savita-bhabhi/#comments

6. Shohini Ghosh, The politics of porn, Himal South Asian Magazine, September 2009, Vol 22, No. 9.

7. Bharath Murthy (director), Mysore Mallige, 2007.

8. Ratheesh Radhakrishnan, “‘The Mis-en-scene of desire’: Stardom and the case of soft porn cinema in Kerala!” Unpublished work. Contact author for copy.

9. Bloomingdale's now sells Tom of Finland shirts and trousers, housewives celebrate their birthdays by piercing their geni- tals, college students dance naked instead of waiting tables to pay their tuition, and middle-level managers schedule a session with a dominatrix in their favorite dungeon after a game of racquetball at their regular health club. From Joseph W. Slade, Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.

10. Walter Metz, “Shark Porn: Film Genre, Reception Studies, and Chris Kentis' Open Water” Film Criticism, March 22, 2007

11 Destricted: explicit films, Marina Abramovic, Matthew Barney, Marco Brambilla, Larry Clark, Gaspar Noé, Richard Prince, Sam Taylor Wood (directors), 2006.

12 Minnette Hillyer, “Sex in the suburban: Porn, Home movies and the Live Action Perofmance of Love in Pam and Tommy: Hardcore and uncensored”, Porn Studies, Duke University Press, London and Durham, 2004, p.50.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/law-video-technology/looking-closer-at-porn-with-x-ray-spectacles-savita-bhabhi-mms-video-and-others

Privacy, pornography, sexuality (a video)

namita — 2011-08-02T08:37:19Z

The video is an attempt to use the material collected for purposes of provoking a discussion around privacy, pornography, sexuality and technology. It focuses largely on an Indian context, which most viewers would be familiar with. The video is pegged around the ban of Savita Bhabhi – a pornographic comic toon – but uses that to open up a discussion on various incidents and concepts in relation to pornography and privacy across Asia.

The project on pleasure and pornography will generate outputs in different formats, but especially since it is meant to be interdisciplinary (legal, critical, feminist, cybercultures, media and cinema studies) it would be interesting to use different ways of communicating the ideas that the project will develop. Several interviews have been conducted (ranging from length of 30 mins to 2 hours) with contemporaries in India whose work in different ways (quantitative research, historical research, filmmaking, academic writings) intersects and relates to pornography – this includes Bharat Murthy, Manjima Bhattacharjya, Nishant Shah, Ratheesh Radhakrishnan, Shohini Ghosh and others.

The video above is an attempt to use the material collected for purposes of provoking a discussion around privacy, pornography, sexuality and technology. It focuses largely on an Indian context, which most viewers would be familiar with. The video is pegged around the ban of Savita Bhabhi – a pornographic comic toon – but uses that to open up a discussion on various incidents and concepts in relation to pornography and privacy across Asia. For instance what is the role of technology and how has it altered or not altered relations between the citizen and the State, what are the stakes of the State in sexual subjectivity of the citizens and what are the relations of gender, pornography and debates around privacy in public discourse.

In this post I would gesture towards the last category that has not been touched upon earlier, in relation to countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. It has become important during the course of this project to draw connections to work done in the global South. In legal studies, comparative work around legal concepts of obscenity, pornography, vulgarity are most often only in relation to America and United Kingdom, either for a strong tradition of free speech and expression in both countries and because of historical connections to common and legislative law in UK. However it is important to examine the trajectories of similar legal paradigms (Malaysia) and even different legal paradigms (Indonesia) across Asia to understand the mechanics of how pornography is constructed and understood in legal and possibly cultural terms as well.

Here we look at instances of material that are described as pornography in legal terms and how that legal category avoids taking onto itself what could be described as hard core pornography, and instead focuses on material that in the Indian context are described as obscene (see first blog post on Indian law). In other parts of Asia, very often laws that describe what is pornography play an important role in controlling women and reinforcing gendered modes of access to media, information or to public spaces.

The Indonesian Anti-pornography law instead of protecting the privacy of individuals, regulates and controls the ways in which women can participate in the public sphere. The law deals with appropriate garb, behaviour, forms of artistic and video practices under the broad umbrella of the term pornoaksi or pornographic action. In Indonesia as in other parts of Asia, there has been over the last 4-5 years a flood of mobile and webcam pornography uploaded by people themselves (couples and individuals), which forms a large part of the erotic consumption in the country. The sheer volume and circulation of these videos points to how technology is enmeshed in sexual practices in even in the global South, contrary to what is written about sexuality and technology that largely focuses on the phenomenon of technology-sexuality in the global North around platforms such as Second Life[i] or aspects of virtual reality. However the new law (passed in 2008) does not address this phenomenon directly even though that was the reason for promulgation of the law, but instead focuses of the dubious and vague category of pornoaksi.

The law also allows for ordinary citizens to complain about obscene behaviour. According to gender and human rights activists in Indonesia, this gives a lot of leeway to the more socially conservative elements to complain and even attack film festivals, gatherings etc. In an article (unpublished) about the anti pornography law, Julia Suryakusuma (a columnist and writer in Indonesia) says -

"But is the so-called ‘Anti-Pornography Law’ indeed aimed against ‘pornography’, or is really directed against women and the freedoms won through post-Soeharto democratization? The Law, I will argue, is, in fact, based on a social construction of ‘morality’ and womanhood that masks as religion but which is, in fact, a potent combination of social conservatism and political opportunism."

The video ends with a very moving press conference by the Malaysian State Assemblywoman offering her resignation because intimate (but not pornographic) pictures of her had been circulated without her consent by her ex-boyfriend. The incident was a transparent ploy by an opposing political party to denounce a formidable opponent and attempts to use public discourse around obscenity, vulgarity to limit the politician’s participation in the public sphere.

The video was also part of a discussion around privacy, agency and security organized at the recent Internet Governance Forum in Egypt in November, 2009[ii] and was screened at the beginning of the workshop to spear head a discussion between varied participants. The workshop was organized by Alternative Law Forum, Association for Progressive Communication - Women's Networking Support Programme and Center for Internet and Society. The IGF saw an intense focus on issues of privacy especially in relation to issues of data aggregation and control over private and public data of individuals by corporate entities. The video and the session was an attempt to bring into the focus of such discussions, issues more pertinent from a feminist, queer or theoretical perspective.

[i] Coming of age in Second Life, Tom Boellstorff : An ethnography of Second Life that looks at various aspects of practices online including friendship, sexuality, marriage, aspirations and desires.

[ii] More details of this workshop (concept note, speakers) are available on the IGF website at http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/index.php/component/chronocontact/?chronoformname=WSProposals2009View&wspid=275

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/law-video-technology/privacy-pornography-sexuality-a-video

Comment by CIS at ACE on Presentation on French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting

pranesh — 2011-12-01T11:59:45Z

The seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement is being held in Geneva on November 30 and December 1, 2011. Pranesh Prakash responded to a presentation by Prof. Pierre Sirinelli of the École de droit de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 on 'The French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting of December 16, 2009' with this comment.

Thank you, Chair. I speak on behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society. First, I would like to congratulate you on your re-election.

And I would like to congratulate Prof. Sirenelli on his excellent presentation.

I would like to flag a few points, though:

One of the benefits of normal laws, as opposed to the soft/plastic laws, which he champions, is that normal laws are bound by procedures established by law, due process requirements, and principles of natural justice. Unfortunately, the soft/plastic laws, which in essence are private agreements, are not.
The report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Expression and Opinion made it clear in his report to the UN Human Rights Council that the Internet is now an intergral part of citizens exercising their right of freedom of speech under national constitutions and under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That report highlights that many initiatives on copyright infringement, including that of the French government with HADOPI and the UK, actually contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The right of privacy is also flagged by many as something that will have to be compromised if such private enforcement of copyright is encouraged.

I'd like to know Prof. Sirinelli's views on these three issues: due process, right of freedom of speech, and the right to privacy.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ace-7-french-charter-cis-comment

Press Coverage of Online Censorship Row

pranesh — 2011-12-08T11:31:30Z

We are maintaining a rolling blog with press references to the row created by the proposal by the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology to pre-screen user-generated Internet content.

Monday, December 5, 2011

India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen Content | Heather Timmons (New York Times, India Ink)

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Sibal warns social websites over objectionable content | Sandeep Joshi (The Hindu)

Hate speech must be blocked, says Sibal | Praveen Swami & Sujay Mehdudia (The Hindu)

Won't remove material just because it's controversial: Google | (Press Trust of India)

Any Normal Human Being Would Be Offended | Heather Timmons (New York Times, India Ink)

After Sibal, Omar too feels some online content inflammatory | (Press Trust of India)

Online uproar as India seeks social media screening | Devidutta Tripathy and Anurag Kotoky (Reuters)

Kapil Sibal for content screening: Facebook, Twitter full of posts against censorship | (IANS)

India May Overstep Its Own Laws in Demanding Content Filtering | John Ribeiro (IDG)

Kapil Sibal warns websites: Mixed response from MPs | (Press Trust of India)

Websites must clean up content, says Sibal | (NewsX)

Kapil Sibal warns websites; Google says won't remove material just because it's controversial | Press Trust of India

Censorship By Any Other Name... | Yamini Lohia (Mint)

Kapil Sibal: We have to take care of sensibility of our people | Associated Press

Kapil Sibal gets backing of Digvijaya Singh over social media screening | Press Trust of India

Sibal Gets What He Set Out To Censor | (Hindustan Times, Agencies)

Objectionable Matter Will Be Removed, Censorship Not in Picture Yet: Kapil Sibal | Amar Kapadia (News Tonight)

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Kapil Sibal Doesn't Understand the Internet | Shivam Vij (India Today)

'Chilling' Impact of India's April Internet Rules | Heather Timmons (New York Times, India Ink)

Screening, not censorship, says Sibal | (Business Standard)

Chandni Chowk to China | Salil Tripathi (Mint)

Kapil Sibal vs the internet | Sandipan Deb (Mint)

No Need for Censorship of the Internet: Cyber Law Experts | (Times News Network)

Protest with flowers for Sibal | (The Hindu)

Kapil Sibal cannot screen this report | Team DNA, Blessy Chettiar & Renuka Rao (Daily News and Analysis)

Kapil Sibal warns websites, but experts say prescreening of user content not practical | (Reuters)

Sibal's Remarks Brought Disgust | Hitesh Mehta (News Tonight)

BJP backs mechanism to curb objectionable content on websites | (The Hindu)

Move to regulate networking sites should be discussed in Parliament: BJP | (Press Trust of India)

Sibal under attack in cyberspace | (Press Trust of India)

Kapil Sibal's web censorship: Indian govt wanted 358 items removed, says Google | (Press Trust of India)

Kapil Sibal gets BJP support but with rider | (Indo-Asian News Service)

Sibal's way of regulating web not okay, says BJP | (Indo-Asian News Service)

Censorship in Blasphemy's Clothings | Gautam Chikermane (Hindustan Times, Just Faith)

India wants Google, Facebook to screen content | Sharon Gaudin (Computer World)

Should we be taming social media? | Swati Prasad (ZDNet, Inside India)

Kapil Sibal gets lampooned for views on Web control | (Daily News and Analysis)

'We don't need no limitation' | Asha Prakash (Times of India)

Five reasons why India can't censor the internet | Prasanto K. Roy (Indo-Asian News Service)

We Are the Web | (Indian Express)

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Kapil Sibal under attack in cyberspace, (Press Trust of India)

Speak Up for Freedom | Pranesh Prakash (Indian Express)

Newswallah: Censorship | Neha Thirani (New York Times, India Ink)

No Question of Censoring the Internet, Says Sachin Pilot | (NDTV)

Mind Your Netiquette, or We'll Mind it for You | A.A.K. (The Economist)

Take Parliament's view to regulate social networking sites, BJP tells govt | (Times News Network)

India wanted 358 items removed | Priscilla Jebaraj (The Hindu)

Indian Government v Social Networking sites: Expert Views | (Bar & Bench News Network)

Can Government Muzzle Websites? | Priyanka Joshi & Piyali Mandal (Business Standard)

US concerned over internet curbs, sidesteps India move | (Indo-Asian News Service)

Why Internet Companies Are Upset with Kapil Sibal | (Rediff)

Why Censor Facebook When You Don't Censor Sunny Leone? | (Indo-Asian News Service)

Online content issue: Talks with India on, says U.S. | (Press Trust of India)

US calls for Internet freedom amid India plan | Agence France-Presse

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/press-coverage-online-censorship

Mobilising support for freedom on the Web

praskrishna — 2012-04-25T11:02:58Z

A motion in the Rajya Sabha has sought annulment of the IT intermediary guidelines, writes Deepa Kurup in this article published in the Hindu on April 22, 2012.

A research, or a sting operation, conducted by researchers at the Centre for Internet and Society in October 2011 — a few months after the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules were notified — revealed some inherent flaws in the guidelines laid down by the Indian government. The results of the study made news, particularly after Union Minister for IT, Kapil Sibal, asked Internet companies and Web service providers to screen content.

The study revealed that companies were only too eager to comply with take-down notices or requests, in order to avoid further hassles, particularly legal ones.

Rishab Dara, a researcher who was part of this ‘sting', pointed out that unless the content was commercial, or had potential commercial interest, companies preferred to err on the side of caution.

Addressing an audience at a panel discussion, titled ‘Resisting Internet censorship: strategies for furthering freedom of expression in India', held at the Bangalore International Centre, Mr. Dara pointed out that search engines did not invest enough resources to check how valid the claims were, before taking down over 2,000 URLs related to a random complaint or take-down notice sent by them. His study underlined the need for debate and discussion on the intermediary guidelines, locating this in the larger context of freedom on the Web.

The discussion, organised by the Centre for Internet and Society, was moderated by the former journalist and academic, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. The audience and the panel comprised a diverse lot: from students, netizens and academics to those who were directly involved in the business of publishing content or hosting Web content. While a substantial part of the discussion dealt with the legal aspects of the notified rules, and how it may contradict the constitutional rights of citizens, a section of the debate also delved into whether the Web as a medium needed to be policed at all.

If panellist Mahesh Murthy, Chief Executive Officer of Pinstorm, argued vociferously for unfettered freedom on the Web and accused the government of being threatened by movements such as the anti-corruption campaign led by Anna Hazare (which he said was largely mobilised on the Web), another panellist Na. Vijayshankar, Cyber Law College, who claimed he was among those instrumental in bringing down the pornographic cartoon portal Savitabhabhi.com, argued that though these rules need to be withdrawn, there are “boundaries” to what can be posted and said on the Web.

Another section of the audience brought up the issues of hate speech on the Web, and pointed out that in some cases there was a need to pin liability on those who generate content that incites hatred.

Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Centre for Law and Policy Research, pointed out that currently the way the issue was being played out in court, the discourse was more about companies.

“The debate is not about users today. Companies are trying to duck liabilities, rather than deal with substantive issues of free speech,” he said, pointing to the complexities in locating liability for content.

Speaking from the publisher's perspective, B.G. Mahesh, OneIndia.in, an online news and entertainment portal, spoke of specific cases where his portal had been targeted by the Chennai Cybercrime cell for hosting a news story (syndicated from a news agency) that was declared defamatory. “We took it down, but there was no answer from them when we asked for an explanation,” he said, adding that in such cases there is tremendous pressure and harassment from authorities, leaving publishers with no choice but to comply.

Though the IT intermediary rules were notified in April 2011, the issue made headlines when Union Minister for Information and Communication Technology Kapil Sibal asked private companies or Web service providers to pre-screen content, a statement which he later withdrew.

Also discussed in detail were the complexities posed by a medium like the World Wide Web, and what were the reasonable restrictions to free speech on the Web. Does one need a separate legal dispensation to deal with this medium, Mr. Thakurta asked. While emphasising that the solution does not lie in “knee-jerk reactions”, such as the rules that have been proposed, he pointed out that the bid to control flow of information was a simple manifestation of the utter helplessness and inability of the government — and governments worldwide — to control the Web. Be it in West Bengal, where a professor is held for sharing a cartoon, or with the Union government that beckons corporates to pre-screen the Web, these acts are a manifestation of a “combination of arrogance and stupidity”, he said.

Subsequently, in February, Rajya Sabha member from Kerala, P. Rajeeve, moved a statutory motion in the Rajya Sabha seeking that these guidelines be annulled on the grounds that it allowed intermediaries protection from legal liability in return for trading away freedom of expression of users.

In the Parliamentary session that will start next week, this is likely to come up for discussion, and across the country, rights activists are mobilising support and lobbying with legislators to garner support for this annulment.

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/mobilising-support-for-freedom-on-web

Expect anti-net censorship echo in house

praskrishna — 2012-04-25T11:07:43Z

For the anti-Internet censorship movement in the country, hope is now in sight. Their fight against the intermediary provisions (section 79) of the IT laws, according to which, an intermediary (website, domain owner) would have to take off content that a third party (or complainant) finds ‘objectionable,’ without any room for appeal, has now garnered the attention of the government itself. What is at stake is our fundamental rights, warns CPM Member of Parliament P Rajeeve, who was perhaps the first at the government level to realise that there was a gaping hole in the provision, and took up the matter in the Rajya Sabha.

This blog post by Arpan Daniel Varghese was published in IBN Live on April 25, 2012

“A discussion on the annulment of the IT Act 2011 itself is likely to figure in the budget session of the Parliament on April 24. I am trying to mobilise other MPs. We have decided to convene a meeting of organizations, representatives of political parties and MPs to discuss this issue in detail,” says MP Rajeeve.

Noted Twitteratti and former Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor too is concerned, particularly about the onus this places on Internet Service Providers.

“If a newspaper publishes something, you go after the newspaper, not the delivery boy. Yes, you can ask the delivery boy to stop delivering the newspaper, but that is such an extreme step that few democracies would contemplate. But what we are trying to do seems to go unacceptably far in this direction and needs further reconsideration,” Tharoor says, adding that he too is planning to raise the issue in the Lok Sabha.

Both Alok Dixit from ‘Save Your Voice’ and Sunil Abraham, the executive director of the Centre for Internet And Society (CIS), say they are speaking to MPs and others in the government and trying to initiate an motion in the Rajya Sabha against the intermediary provisions. And support has been pouring in from all quarters, be it cyber space or through the pan-India protests, including the recent one at the Marina Beach in Chennai that ‘Save Your Voice’ has been holding.

Alok, Sunil and scores of activists across the country are now pinning their hopes on the annulment motion introduced by MP Rajeeve, which is likely to be taken up during the second half of the Parliament session on Tuesday.
The main hassle, however, is ignorance. “People don’t even know about the laws. They are not aware of their rights. So, the kind of support we are getting is quite less,” says Alok.

The legal fraternity and the administration too face the same roadblock, agrees Kerala High Court advocate Jacob. “This is a new area and people are just learning the theoretical side of it. There are not many cases. Trained professionals are not there to train the legal fraternity itself,” he rues.

The fundamental question is, according to Sunil, “why should freedom of speech and expression be any different on the Internet?”
“Remember, this is the same Internet which brought out Kolaveri and structured the Anna movement. So, it affects you,” Alok signs off.

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/anti-net-censorship-echo-in-house

Campaign against curbs on websites gathers steam

praskrishna — 2012-04-25T11:19:29Z

For political cartoonist Aseem Trivedi and his blogger-cum-journalist friend Alok Dixit, who both ran a website against corruption, a tryst with the blind side of law triggered their mission against “gagging” of the new-age Indian Internet user.

The blog post by Arpan Daniel Varghese was published by IBN Live on April 23, 2012.

It all started when they were in Mumbai, taking part in the first public protest seeking a strong Lokpal led by social activist Anna Hazare. “During the course of the protest, we got word that our website had been taken off,” recalls Alok.

The Mumbai Police had banned the website without any prior notice, apparently after a complaint was filed by a Congress leader that some content on the site, CartoonsAgainstCorruption, was objectionable, he says.

“We then contacted Bigrocks, the domain provider, but they did not divulge the exact procedure to restore our website,” he adds.

Kerala High Court lawyer P Jacob, who has a masters in cyber law and is a researcher in the field, clarifies. “Let’s say that you are a website, blog or domain owner... As per the intermediary rules incorporated into the IT laws, introduced through an amendment in 2011, if a third person sends a complaint, be it a frivolous one, to you (the intermediary ) about some objectionable content, you will have to take off the said content within 36 hours.”

This could happen to any one and could be quite dangerous, points out Sunil Abraham, the executive director of The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-India).� “If a company wants to target your organization’s social media network, they can keep sending fraudulent emails to you and you will have to keep deleting it unless you are ready to face litigation or government action. And then there is no penalty for abusing the provision. There is no transparency, the people who comment will not be told,” says Sunil.

It was this realization that drove Alok, who then quit his job as a reporter, and Aseem Trivedi to start a movement against such blind curbs. ‘Save Your Voice’ was thus born.

A research conducted by the CIS gave further credence to their fears that it was very “easy to ban any website in India.”

“We call it a policy sting operation,” details Sunil. “We sent out fraudulent take- down notices (or complaints) to seven of the largest intermediaries in India. They gladly over-complied and promptly took off the material in question. You can try this. You could look at a legitimate comment and complain that this is blasphemous, offensive or plain annoying. And without questioning your locus standi, the intermediary sites will have to take it off.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/campaign-against-curbs-on-websites

Indian Porn Ban is Partially Lifted But Sites Remain Blocked

pranesh — 2015-09-13T09:00:03Z

The Indian government made a quick about-face on its order to block hundreds of pornography websites on Tuesday, partially lifting the ban after political backlash against the moral policing.

The article was published in Wall Street Journal on August 5, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.

But the websites remained blocked because Internet service providers were afraid of legal trouble.

The new order from the Department of Telecommunications said that Internet service providers could unblock any of the 857 websites, so long as they don’t contain child pornography. However, the websites remain blocked because service providers say they have no way of knowing whether they contain child porn, and no control over whether they will in the future.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, the IT minister, said Tuesday night that the government would trim down the list of banned sites, to focus only on those that contain child porn.

“A new notification will be issued shortly. The ban will be partially withdrawn. Sites that do not promote child porn will be unbanned,” said Mr. Prasad on the TV news channel India Today.

The wording of the new order created confusion, because it appears to put the responsibility for policing the Internet for child pornography on service providers.

“How can we go ahead? What if something comes up tomorrow [on one of these sites], which has child porn, or something else?,” said an executive at an Indian service provider who asked not to be named.

“The onus cannot be put on the service providers. What the government is doing is inherently unfair, it is not what the law requires,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based civil liberties advocacy group. It is the government’s job to determine what violates the law, not private companies, Mr. Prakash said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-wall-street-journal-august-5-2015-sean-mclain-indian-porn-ban-is-partially-lifted-but-sites-remain-blocked

India partially lifts Porn Ban?

praskrishna — 2015-09-20T06:30:34Z

India is said to have partially removed the porn ban. But many internet service providers have refused to restore access, due to a 'vague' government order.

The blog post by Nazhat Khan was published in DESI blitz on August 7, 2015.

India has partially lifted the ban of online pornography, just days after blocking user access to 857 adult websites.

The Indian government enforced the ban on July 30, 2015, only to reverse its decision on August 4, 2015. Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Communications and IT Minister, clarifies the ban only targets websites promoting child pornography.

He says: “A new notification will be issued shortly. The ban will be partially withdrawn. Sites that do not promote child porn will be unbanned.” Under the new order, internet service providers (ISPs) in India are allowed to unblock these 857 websites – except for those that contain child pornography.

This has caused another outrage. ISPs complain it is not within their capability and responsibility to do so. Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) explains: “ISPs have no way or mechanism to filter out child pornography from URLs, and the further unlimited sub-links.

“Hence, we request your good self to advise us immediately on the future course of action in this regard.

“Till your further directive, the ISPs are keeping the said 857 URLs disabled.”

An executive at an Indian ISP tells the Wall Street Journal: “How can we go ahead? What if something comes up tomorrow [on one of these sites], which has child porn, or something else?”

Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, points out it is not right for the government to pass the ball over to private companies.

He says: “The onus cannot be put on the service providers. What the government is doing is inherently unfair, it is not what the law requires.” In effect, porn sites in India are still blocked. The Supreme Court and senior officials are yet to provide clearer directives for ISPs.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/desi-blitz-august-7-2015-nazhat-khan-india-partially-lifts-porn-ban

Indian net service providers too play censorship tricks

praskrishna — 2013-02-13T04:20:53Z

The study by a Canadian university has found that some major Indian ISPs have deployed web-censorship and filtering technology.

The article by T Ramachandran was published in the Hindu on February 9, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Your internet service provider (ISP) could be blocking some content. A study conducted by a Canadian university has found that some major Indian ISPs have deployed web-censorship and filtering technology widely used in China and some West Asian countries.

The findings, published on January 15, were the result of a search for censorship software and hardware on public networks like those operated by ISPs.

A research team at Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, found a software-hardware combo package called PacketShaper being used in many parts of the world, including India.

The study identified the presence of four PacketShaper installations on the networks of three major ISPs in India during the period of study in late 2012. These ISPs had been earlier “implicated in filtering to some degree,” the report said.

The deployment of such traffic management technologies by ISPs could threaten privacy, freedom of expression and competition, said Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of the Bangalore-based NGO, Centre for Internet and Society.

He said tools like PacketShaper could be used by ISPs for two types of censorship —“to block entire websites or choke traffic on certain services or destinations in a highly granular fashion.”

The U.S.-based producers of the technology, Blue Coat Systems, are quite open about the product features on the company’s website. They say it could be used to control and weed out undesirable content. It could also be used to slow down or speed up the operation of programmes and content flow to achieve the goals set by the operators of the networks.

Transparency is the key

Technology experts said such products could be used to exercise legitimate control over the internet traffic and prioritise the use of bandwidth and resources, if used ethically.

“If done in a transparent manner that does not discriminate against different actors within a class it does benefit the collective interest of the ISP’s clients. However, it could also be used to engage in hidden censorship against legitimate speech and also for anti-competitive behaviour,” said Mr. Abraham.

The study focussed on countries where concerns exist over “compliance with international human rights law, legal due process, freedom of speech, surveillance, and censorship.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-feb-9-2013-t-ramachandran-indian-net-service-providers-too-play-censorship-tricks