Centre for Internet and Society

European Court of Justice rules Internet Search Engine Operator responsible for Processing Personal Data Published by Third Parties

jyoti — 2014-05-14T14:18:46Z

The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that an "an internet search engine operator is responsible for the processing that it carries out of personal data which appear on web pages published by third parties.” The decision adds to the conundrum of maintaining a balance between freedom of expression, protecting personal data and intermediary liability.

The ruling is expected to have considerable impact on reputation and privacy related takedown requests as under the decision, data subjects may approach the operator directly seeking removal of links to web pages containing personal data. Currently, users prove whether data needs to be kept online—the new rules reverse the burden of proof, placing an obligation on companies, rather than users for content regulation.

A win for privacy?

The ECJ ruling addresses Mario Costeja González complaint filed in 2010, against Google Spain and Google Inc., requesting that personal data relating to him appearing in search results be protected and that data which was no longer relevant be removed. Referring to the Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament, the court said, that Google and other search engine operators should be considered 'controllers' of personal data. Following the decision, Google will be required to consider takedown requests of personal data, regardless of the fact that processing of such data is carried out without distinction in respect of information other than the personal data.

The decision—which cannot be appealed—raises important of questions of how this ruling will be applied in practice and its impact on the information available online in countries outside the European Union. The decree forces search engine operators such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing to make judgement calls on the fairness of the information published through their services that reach over 500 million people across the twenty eight nation bloc of EU.

ECJ rules that search engines 'as a general rule,' should place the right to privacy above the right to information by the public. Under the verdict, links to irrelevant and out of date data need to be erased upon request, placing search engines in the role of controllers of information—beyond the role of being an arbitrator that linked to data that already existed in the public domain. The verdict is directed at highlighting the power of search engines to retrieve controversial information while limiting their capacity to do so in the future.

The ruling calls for maintaining a balance in addressing the legitimate interest of internet users in accessing personal information and upholding the data subject’s fundamental rights, but does not directly address either issues. The court also recognised, that the data subject's rights override the interest of internet users, however, with exceptions pertaining to nature of information, its sensitivity for the data subject's private life and the role of the data subject in public life. Acknowledging that data belongs to the individual and is not the right of the company, European Commissioner Viviane Reding, hailed the verdict, "a clear victory for the protection of personal data of Europeans".

The Court stated that if data is deemed irrelevant at the time of the case, even if it has been lawfully processed initially, it must be removed and that the data subject has the right to approach the operator directly for the removal of such content. The liability issue is further complicated by the fact, that search engines such as Google do not publish the content rather they point to information that already exists in the public domain—raising questions of the degree of liability on account of third party content displayed on their services.

The ECJ ruling is based on the case originally filed against Google, Spain and it is important to note that, González argued that searching for his name linked to two pages originally published in 1998, on the website of the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. The Spanish Data Protection Agency did not require La Vanguardia to take down the pages, however, it did order Google to remove links to them. Google appealed this decision, following which the National High Court of Spain sought advice from the European court. The definition of Google as the controller of information, raises important questions related to the distinction between liability of publishers and the liability of processors of information such as search engines.

The 'right to be forgotten'

The decision also brings to the fore, the ongoing debate and fragmented opinions within the EU, on the right of the individual to be forgotten. The 'right to be forgotten' has evolved from the European Commission's wide-ranging plans of an overhaul of the commission's 1995 Data Protection Directive. The plans for the law included allowing people to request removal of personal data with an obligation of compliance for service providers, unless there were 'legitimate' reasons to do otherwise. Technology firms rallying around issues of freedom of expression and censorship, have expressed concerns about the reach of the bill. Privacy-rights activist and European officials have upheld the notion of the right to be forgotten, highlighting the right of the individual to protect their honour and reputation.

These issues have been controversial amidst EU member states with the UK's Ministry of Justice claiming the law 'raises unrealistic and unfair expectations' and has sought to opt-out of the privacy laws. The Advocate General of the European Court Niilo Jääskinen's opinion, that the individual's right to seek removal of content should not be upheld if the information was published legally, contradicts the verdict of the ECJ ruling. The European Court of Justice's move is surprising for many and as Richard Cumbley, information-management and data protection partner at the law firm Linklaters puts it, “Given that the E.U. has spent two years debating this right as part of the reform of E.U. privacy legislation, it is ironic that the E.C.J. has found it already exists in such a striking manner."

The economic implications of enforcing a liability regime where search engine operators censor legal content in their results aside, the decision might also have a chilling effect on freedom of expression and access to information. Google called the decision “a disappointing ruling for search engines and online publishers in general,” and that the company would take time to analyze the implications. While the implications of the decision are yet to be determined, it is important to bear in mind that while decisions like these are public, the refinements that Google and other search engines will have to make to its technology and the judgement calls on the fairness of the information available online are not public.

The ECJ press release is available here and the actual judgement is available here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ecj-rules-internet-search-engine-operator-responsible-for-processing-personal-data-published-by-third-parties

Two Arguments Against the Constitutionality of Section 66A

Gautam Bhatia — 2014-06-04T03:42:17Z

Gautam Bhatia explores the constitutionality of Section 66A in light of recent events.

In the immediate aftermath of the elections, free speech issues have come to the fore again. In Goa, a Facebook user was summoned for a post warning a second holocaust if Modi was elected to power. In Karnataka, a MBA student was likewise arrested for circulating an MMS that showed Modi’s face morphed onto a corpse, with the slogan “Abki baar antim sanskaar”. These arrests have reopened the debate about the constitutional validity of Section 66A of the IT Act, which is the legal provision governing online speech in India. Section 66A criminalises, among other things, the sending of information that is “grossly offensive or menacing in character” or causes “annoyance or inconvenience”. The two instances cited above raise – not for the first time – the concern that when it comes to implementation, Section 66A is unworkable to the point of being unconstitutional.

Like all legal provisions, Section 66A must comply with the fundamental rights chapter of the Indian Constitution. Article 19(1)(a) guarantees the freedom of speech and expression, and Article 19(2) permits reasonable restrictions in the interests of – inter alia – “public order, decency or morality”. Presumably, the only way in which Section 66A can be justified is by showing that it falls within the category of “public order” or of “morality”. The precedent of the Supreme Court, however, has interpreted Article 19(2) in far narrower terms than the ones that Section 66A uses. The Court has held that “public order” may only be invoked if there is a direct and immediate relation between the offending speech and a public order disturbance – such as, for instance, a speaker making an incendiary speech to an excited mob, advocating imminent violence (the Court has colloquially stated the requirement to be a “spark in a powder keg”). Similarly, while the Court has never precisely defined what “morality” – for the purposes of Article 19(2) – means, the term has been invoked where (arguably) pornographic materials are concerned – and never simply because speech has “offended” or “menaced” someone. Indeed, the rhetoric of the Court has consistently rejected the proposition that the government can prohibit individuals from offending one another.

This raises two constitutional problems with Section 66A: the problems of overbreadth and vagueness. Both doctrines have been developed to their fullest in American free speech law, but the underlying principles are universal.

A statute is overbroad when it potentially includes within its prohibitions both speech that it is entitled to prohibit, and speech that it is not. In Gooding v. Wilson, a Georgia statute criminalized the use of “opprobrious words or abusive language”. In defending the statute, the State of Georgia argued that its Courts had read it narrowly, limiting its application to “fighting words” – i.e., words that by their very nature tended to incite an imminent breach of the peace, something that was indisputably within the power of the State to prohibit. The Supreme Court rejected the argument and invalidated the statute. It found that the words “opprobrious” and “abusive” had greater reach than “fighting words”. Thus, since the statute left “wide open the standard of responsibility, so that it [was] easily susceptible to improper application”, the Court struck it down.

A statute is vague when persons of “ordinary intelligence… have no reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited.” In Grayned v. Rockford, the American Supreme Court noted that “a vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application.” There are, therefore, a number of problems with vague laws: one of the fundamental purposes of law is to allow citizens to plan their affairs with a degree of certainty. Vagueness in legislation prevents that. And equally importantly, vague laws leave a wide scope of implementing power with non-elected bodies, such as the police – leading to the fear of arbitrary application.

While overbreadth and vagueness are problems that affect legislation across the board, they assume a particular urgency when it comes to free speech. This is because, as the American Supreme Court has recognized on a number of occasions, speech regulating statutes must be scrutinized with specific care because of the chilling effect: when speech is penalized, people will – out of fear and caution – exercise self-censorship, and the political discourse will be impoverished. If we accept – as the Indian Courts have – that a primary reason for guaranteeing free expression rights is their indispensability to democracy, then the danger of self-censorship is one that we should be particularly solicitous of. Hence, when speech-regulating statutes do proscribe expression, they must be clear and narrowly drawn, in order to avoid the chilling effect. As the American Supreme Court euphemistically framed it, “free speech needs breathing space to survive.” Overbroad and vague speech-restricting statutes are particularly pernicious in denying it that breathing space.

There seems to be little doubt that Section 66A is both overbroad and vague. However ill-judged a holocaust comparison or a morphed corpse-image may be, neither of them are like sparks in a powder keg, which will lead to an immediate breach in public order – or “immoral” in the way of explicit pornography. We can therefore see, clearly, that the implementation of the law leaves almost unbounded scope to officials such as the police, provides room for unconstitutional interpretations, and is so vaguely framed that it is almost impossible to know, in advance, what actions fall within the rule, and which ones are not covered by it. If there is such a thing as over-breadth and vagueness par excellence, then Section 66A is surely it!

At various times in its history, the Supreme Court has acknowledged the problems of overbreadth, vagueness and the chilling effect, but never directly incorporated them into Indian law. As we have seen, each of these elements is connected to the other: over-broad and vague speech-regulating statutes are problematic because of the chilling effect. Since Section 66A is presently being challenged before the Supreme Court, there is a great opportunity for the Court both to get rid of this unconstitutional law, as well as strengthen the foundations of our free speech jurisprudence.

Gautam Bhatia — @gautambhatia88 on Twitter — is a graduate of the National Law School of India University (2011), and presently an LLM student at the Yale Law School. He blogs about the Indian Constitution at http://indconlawphil.wordpress.com. Here at CIS, he blogs on issues of online freedom of speech and expression.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/two-arguments-against-the-constitutionality-of-section-66a

WSIS+10 High-Level Event: Open Consultation Process

praskrishna — 2014-06-04T10:14:01Z

Jyoti Panday represented the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) at the WSIS+10 High-Level Event:Open Consultation Process held in Geneva from May 28 to 31, 2014.

The Fifth Physical Meeting marked Phase Six of the Open Consultation Process for the WSIS+10 High-Level Event (HLE) to be held in Geneva from June 10 to 13, 2014.

The meeting saw the culmination of the multistakeholder review process on the WSIS+10 Statement on the Implementation of the WSIS Outcomes and the WSIS+10 Vision for WSIS Beyond 2015.

CIS made interventions on text related to increasing women's participation, freedom of expression, media rights, data privacy, network security and human rights.

CIS also endorsed text on action line 'Media' which reaffirmed committment to freedom of expression, data privacy and media rights offline and online including protection of sources, publishers and journalists.

Download the final agreed draft of the WSIS+10 Statement on the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes that will be deliberated upon and agreed at the HLE, for your reference.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wsis-high-level-event-open-consultation-process

Free Speech and Contempt of Court – I: Overview

Gautam Bhatia — 2014-06-08T15:29:33Z

Gautam Bhatia explores an under-theorised aspect of India's free speech jurisprudence: the contempt power that equips courts to "protect the dignity of the Bench". In this introductory post, he examines jurisprudence from the US and England to inform our analysis of Indian law.

On May 31, the Times of India reported some observations of a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court on its contempt powers. The Court noted that the power to punish for contempt was necessary to “secure public respect and confidence in the judicial process”, and also went on to add – rather absurdly – to lay down the requirements, in terms of timing, tone and tenor, of a truly “contrite” apology. This opinion, however, provides us with a good opportunity to examine one of the most under-theorised aspects of Indian free speech law: the contempt power.

Indeed, the contempt power finds express mention in the Constitution. Article 19(2) permits the government to impose reasonable restrictions upon the freedom of speech and expression “… in relation to contempt of court.” The legislation governing contempt powers is the 1971 Contempt of Courts Act. Contempt as a civil offence involves willful disobedience of a court order. Contempt as a criminal offence, on the other hand, involves either an act or expression (spoken, written or otherwise visible) that does one of three things: scandalises, or tends to scandalize, or lowers, or tends to lower, the authority of any court; prejudices or interferes (or tends to interfere) with judicial proceedings; or otherwise obstructs, or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice. As we can see, contempt can – broadly – take two forms: first, obstructing the proceedings of the Court by acts such as disobeying an order, holding up a hearing through absence or physical/verbal disturbance etc. This is straightforward enough. More problematically, however, contempt also covers instances of what we may call “pure speech”: words or other forms of expression about the Court that are punished for no other reason but their content. In particular, “scandalising the Court” seems to be particularly vague and formless in its scope and ambit.

“Scandalising the court” is a common law term. The locus classicus is the 1900 case of R v. Gray, which – in language that the Contempt of Courts Act has largely adopted – defined it as “any act done or writing published calculated to bring a Court or a judge of the Court into contempt, or to lower his authority.” The basic idea is that if abusive invective against the Court is permitted, then people will lose respect for the judiciary, and justice will be compromised.

It is obvious that this argument is flawed in many respects, and we shall analyse the Supreme Court’s problematic understanding of its contempt powers in the next post. First, however, it is instructive to examine the fate of contempt powers in the United States – which, like India, constitutionally guarantees the freedom of speech – and in England, whose model India has consciously followed.

America’s highly speech-protective Courts have taken a dim view of contempt powers. Three cases stand out. Bridges v. California involved a contempt of court accusation against a labour leader for calling a Court decision “outrageous”, and threatening a strike if it was upheld. Reversing his prior conviction, the Supreme Court noted that “public interest is much more likely to be kindled by a controversial event of the day than by a generalization, however penetrating, of the historian or scientist.” Given the strong public interest, the burden of justifying restrictions upon this speech was particularly high. The Court identified two possible justifications: respect for the judiciary, and the orderly administration of justice. On the first, it observed that “an enforced silence, however limited, solely in the name of preserving the dignity of the bench would probably engender resentment, suspicion, and contempt much more than it would enhance respect.” On the second, it held that since striking itself was entirely legal, it was no argument that the threat of a strike would illegally intimidate a judge and subvert the course of justice. Throughout the case, the Court stressed that unfettered speech on matters of public interest was of paramount value, and could only be curtailed if there was a “clear and present danger” that the substantially evil consequences would result out of allowing it.

Similarly, in Garrison v. Lousiana, an attorney accused certain judges of inefficiency and laziness. Reversing his conviction, the Supreme Court took note of “the paramount public interest in a free flow of information to the people concerning public officials, their servants…. few personal attributes are more germane to fitness for office than dishonesty, malfeasance, or improper motivation, even though these characteristics may also affect the official's private character.” Consequently, it held that only those statements could be punished that the author either knew were false, or were made with reckless disregard for the truth. And lastly, in Landmark Communications v. Virginia, the Court held that “the operations of the courts and the judicial conduct of judges are matters of utmost public concern”, and endorsed Justice Frankfurter’s prior statement, that “speech cannot be punished when the purpose is simply "to protect the court as a mystical entity or the judges as individuals or as anointed priests set apart from the community and spared the criticism to which in a democracy other public servants are exposed.”

What stands out here is the American Courts’ rejection of the ideas that preserving the authority of judges by suppressing certain forms of speech is an end in itself, and that the Courts must be insulated to some greater degree than other officials of government. Consequently, it must be shown that the impugned expression presents a clear and present danger to the administration of justice, before it can be punished.

Now to England. The last successful prosecution of the offence was in 1931. In 2012, the Law Commission published a paper on contempt powers, in which it expressly recommended abolishing the offence of “scandalising the Court”; its recommendations were accepted, and the offence was abolished in 2013. Admittedly, the offence remains on the statute books in many commonwealth nations, although two months ago – in April 2014 – the Privy Council gave it a highly circumscribed interpretation while adjudicating a case on appeal from Mauritius: there must, it held, be a “real risk of undermining public confidence in the administration of justice” (something akin to clear and present danger?), and the Prosecution must demonstrate that the accused either intended to do so, or acted in reckless disregard of whether or not he was doing so.

What is particularly interesting is the Law Commission’s reasoning in its recommendations. Tracing the history of the offence back to 18^th century England, it noted that the original justification was to maintain a “haze of glory” around the Courts, and it was crucial that the Courts not only be universally impartial, but also perceived to be so. Consequently, the Law Commission observed that “this language suggests that “to be impartial” and “to be universally thought so” are two independent requirements, implying that the purpose of the offence is not confined to preventing the public from getting the wrong idea about the judges, and that where there are shortcomings, it is equally important to prevent the public from getting the right idea.” Obviously, this was highly problematic.

The Law Commission also noted the adverse impact of the law on free speech: the well-known chilling effect, whereby people would self-censor even justified criticism. This was exacerbated by the vagueness of the offence, which left unclear the intent requirement, and the status of defences based on truth and public interest. The Law Commission was concerned, as well, about the inherently self-serving nature of the offence, which give judges the power to sit in judgment over speech and expression that was directly critical of them. Lastly, the Law Commission noted that the basic point of contempt powers was similar to that of seditious libel: to ensure the good reputation of the State (or, in the case of scandalising, the judges) by controlling what could be said about them. With the abolition of seditious libel, the raison d’être of scandalising the Court was also – now – weakened.

We see, therefore, that the United States has rejected sweeping contempt powers as unconstitutional. England, which created the offence that India incorporated into its law, stopped prosecuting people for it in 1931, and formally abolished it last year. And even when its hands have been bound by the law that it is bound the enforce, the Privy Council has interpreted the offence in as narrow a manner as possible, in order to remain solicitous of free speech concerns. Unfortunately, as we shall see in the next essay, all these developments have utterly passed our Courts by.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/free-speech-and-contempt-of-court-2013-i-overview

Free Speech and Contempt of Courts – II: Article 19(1)(a) and Indian Law

gautam — 2014-06-16T05:48:55Z

Gautam Bhatia continues his examination of free speech implications of the law of contempt: the power that equips courts to "protect the dignity of the Bench".

Towards the end of the last post, we saw how the Law Commission traced the genealogy of the “scandalising the Court” offence, inasmuch as it sought to protect the “standing of the judiciary”, to that of seditious libel. The basic idea is the same: if people are allowed to criticise state institutions in derogatory terms, then they can influence their fellow-citizens who, in turn, will lose respect for those institutions. Consequently, the authority of those institutions will be diminished, and they will be unable to effectively perform their functions. Hence, we prevent that eventuality by prohibiting certain forms of speech when it concerns the functioning of the government (seditious libel) or the Courts (scandalising the Court). This, of course, often ties the judges into knots, in determining the exact boundary between strident – but legitimate – criticism, and sedition/scandalising the Court.

Seditious libel, of course, went out in the United States with the repeal of the Sedition Act in 1800, and was abolished in the England in 2009. Notoriously, it still remains on the statute books in India, in the form of S. 124A of the Indian Penal Code. An examination of the Supreme Court’s sedition jurisprudence would, therefore, be apposite. Section 124A makes it an offence to bring or attempt to bring into hatred or contempt, or excite or attempt to excite, disaffection, towards the government. The locus classicus is Kedar Nath Singh v. Union of India. I have analysed the case in detail elsewhere, but briefly, Kedar Nath Singh limited the scope of 124A to incitement to violence, or fostering public disorder, within the clear terms of Article 19(2). In other words, prosecution for sedition, if it was to succeed, would have to satisfy the Court’s public order jurisprudence under Article 19(2). The public order test itself – as we discussed previously on this blog, in a post about Section 66A – was set out in highly circumscribed terms in Ram Manohar Lohia’s Case, which essentially required a direct and imminent degree of proximity between the speech or expression, and the breach of public order (in that case, the Court refused to sustain the conviction of a speaker who expressly encouraged an audience to break the law). Subsequently, in S. Rangarajan v. P. Jagjivan Ram, the Court noted that the relation ought to be like that of a “spark in a powder keg” – something akin to inciting an enraged mob to immediate violence. Something that the Court has clearly rejected is the argument that it is permissible to criminalise speech and expression simply because its content might lower the authority of the government in the eyes of the public, which, in turn, could foster a disrespect for law and the State, and lead to breaches of public order.

Unfortunately, however, when it comes to contempt and scandalising, the Court has adopted exactly the chain of reasoning that it has rejected in the public order cases. As early as 1953, in Aswini Kumar Ghose v. Arabinda Bose, the Court observed that “it is obvious that if an impression is created in the minds of the public that the Judges in the highest Court in the land act on extraneous considerations in deciding cases, the confidence of the whole community in the administration of justice is bound to be undermined and no greater mischief than that can possibly be imagined.”

Subsequently, in D.C. Saxena v. CJI, the Court held that “Any criticism about judicial system or the judges which hampers the administration of justice or which erodes the faith in the objective approach of the judges and brings administration of justice to ridicule must be prevented. The contempt of court proceedings arise out of that attempt. Judgments can be criticised. Motives to the judges need not be attributed. It brings the administration of justice into disrepute. Faith in the administration of justice is one of the pillars on which democratic institution functions and sustains.” Notice the chain of causation the Court is working with here: it holds faith in the administration of justice as a necessary pre-requisite to the administration of justice, and prohibits criticism that would cause other people to lose their faith in the judiciary. This is exactly akin to a situation in which I make an argument advocating Marxist theory, and I am punished because some people, on reading my article, might start to hold the government in contempt, and attempt to overthrow it by violent means. Not only is it absurd, it is also entirely disrespectful of individual autonomy: it is based on the assumption that the person legally and morally responsibly for a criminal act is not the actor, but the person who convinced the actor through words and arguments, to break the law – as though individuals are incapable of weighing up competing arguments and coming to decisions of their own accord. Later on, in the same case, the Court holds that scandalising includes “all acts which bring the court into disrepute or disrespect or which offend its dignity or its majesty or challenge its authority.” As we have seen before, however, disrepute or disrespect of an institution cannot in itself be a ground for punishment, unless there is something more. That something more is actual disruption of justice, which is presumably caused by people who have lost their confidence in the judiciary, but in eliding disrepute/disrespect with obstruction of justice, the Court entirely fails to consider the individual agency involved in crossing that bridge, the agency that is not that of the original speaker. This is why, again, in its sedition cases, the Court has gone out of its way to actually require a proximate relation between “disaffection” and public order breaches, in order to save the section from unconstitutionality. Its contempt jurisprudence, on the other hand, shows no such regard. It is perhaps telling that the Court, one paragraph on, adopts the “blaze of glory” formulation that was used in an 18^th century, pre-democratic English case.

Indeed, the Court draws an express analogy with sedition, holding that “malicious or slanderous publication inculcates in the mind of the people a general disaffection and dissatisfaction on the judicial determination and indisposes in their mind to obey them.” Even worse, it then takes away even the basic protection of mens rea, holding that all that matters is the effect of the impugned words, regardless of the intention/recklessness with which they were uttered. The absence of mens rea, along with the absence of any meaningful proximity requirement, makes for a very dangerous cocktail – an offence that can cover virtually any activity that the Court believes has a “tendency” to certain outcomes: “Therefore, a tendency to scandalise the court or tendency to lower the authority of the court or tendency to interfere with or tendency to obstruct the administration of justice in any manner or tendency to challenge the authority or majesty of justice, would be a criminal contempt. The offending act apart, any tendency if it may lead to or tends to lower the authority of the court is a criminal contempt. Any conduct of the contemnor which has the tendency or produces a tendency to bring the judge or court into contempt or tends to lower the authority of the court would also be contempt of the court.”

The assumption implicit in these judgments – that the people need to be protected from certain forms of speech, because they are incompetent at making up their own minds, in a reasonable manner, about it – was made express in Arundhati Roy’s Case, in 2002. After making observations about how confidence in the Courts could not be allowed to be “tarnished” at any cost, the Court noted that “the respondent has tried to cast an injury to the public by creating an impression in the mind of the people of this backward country regarding the integrity, ability and fairness of the institution of judiciary”, observed that the purpose of the offence was to protect the (presumably backward) public by maintaining its confidence in the judiciary, which had been enacted keeping in mind “the ground realities and prevalent socio-economic system in India, the vast majority of whose people are poor, ignorant, uneducated, easily liable to be misled. But who acknowledly (sic) have the tremendous faith in the dispensers of Justice.” So easy, indeed, to mislead, that there was no need for any evidence to demonstrate it: “the well-known proposition of law is that it punishes the archer as soon as the arrow is shot no matter if it misses to hit the target. The respondent is proved to have shot the arrow, intended to damage the institution of the judiciary and thereby weaken the faith of the public in general and if such an attempt is not prevented, disastrous consequences are likely to follow resulting in the destruction of rule of law, the expected norm of any civilised society.”

The American legal scholar, Vince Blasi, has outlined a “pathological perspective” of free speech. According to him, heightened protection of speech – even to the extent of protecting worthless speech – is important, because when the government passes laws to regulate speech that is hostile towards it, it will, in all likelihood, over-regulate purely out of self-interest, sometimes even unconsciously so. This is why, if the Courts err, they ought to err on the side of speech-protection, because it is quite likely that the government has over-estimated public order and other threats that stem out of hostile speech towards government itself. The pathological perspective is equally – if not more – applicable in the realm of contempt of Court, because here the Court is given charge of regulating speech hostile towards itself. Keenly aware of the perils of speech suppression that lie in such situations, we have seen that the United States and England have abolished the offence, and the Privy Council has interpreted it extremely narrowly.

The Indian Supreme Court, however, has gone in precisely the opposite direction. It has used the Contempt of Court statute to create a strict-liability criminal offence, with boundlessly manipulable categories, which is both overbroad and vague, entirely inconsistent with the Court’s own free speech jurisprudence, and at odds with free speech in a liberal democracy.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/free-speech-and-contempt-of-courts-2013-ii-article-19-1-a-and-indian-law

Response to Mozilla DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR) Comment Period

Gurshabad Grover, Divyank Katira — 2021-01-19T07:35:24Z

CIS has submitted a response to Mozilla's DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR) Comment Period

This submission presents a response by the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) to Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR) Comment Period (hereinafter, the “Consultation”) released on November 18, 2020. CIS appreciates Mozilla’s consultations, and is grateful for the opportunity to put forth its views and comments.

Read the response here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/response-to-mozilla-dns-over-https-doh-and-trusted-recursive-resolver-trr-comment-period

The Legal Validity of Internet Bans: Part I

Geetha Hariharan and Padmini Baruah — 2015-10-08T11:18:34Z

In recent months, there has been a spree of bans on access to Internet services in Indian states, for different reasons. The State governments have relied on Section 144, Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 to institute such bans. Despite a legal challenge, the Gujarat High Court found no infirmity in this exercise of power in a recent order. We argue that it is Section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000, and the Website Blocking Rules, which set out the legal provision and procedure empowering the State to block access to the Internet (if at all it is necessary), and not Section 144, CrPC.

In recent months, there has been a spree of bans on access to Internet services in India states, for different reasons. In Gujarat, the State government banned access to mobile Internet (data services) citing breach of peace during the Hardik Patel agitation. In Godhra in Gujarat, mobile Internet was banned as a precautionary measure during Ganesh visarjan. In Kashmir, mobile Internet was banned for three days or more because the government feared that people would share pictures of slaughter of animals during Eid on social media, which would spark unrest across the state.

Can State or Central governments impose a ban on Internet access? If the State or its officials anticipate disorder or a disturbance of ‘public tranquility’, can Internet access through mobiles be banned? According to a recent order of the Gujarat High Court: Yes; Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (“CrPC”) empowers the State government machinery to impose a temporary ban.

But the Gujarat High Court’s order neglects the scope of Section 69A, IT Act, and wrongly finds that the State government can exercise blocking powers under Section 144, CrPC. In this post and the next, we argue that it is Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act”) which is the legal provision empowering the State to block access to the Internet (including data services), and not Section 144, CrPC. Section 69A covers blocks to Internet access, and since it is a special law dealing with the Internet, it prevails over the general Code of Criminal Procedure.

Moreover, the blocking powers must stay within constitutional boundaries prescribed in, inter alia, Article 19 of the Constitution. Blocking powers are, therefore, subject to the widely-accepted tests of legality (foresight and non-arbitrariness), legitimacy of the grounds for restriction of fundamental rights and proportionality, calling for narrowly tailored restrictions causing minimum disruptions and/or damage.

In Section I of this post, we set out a brief record of the events that preceded the blocking of access to data services (mobile Internet) in several parts of Gujarat. Then in Section II, we summarise the order of the Gujarat High Court, dismissing the petition challenging the State government’s Internet-blocking notification under Section 144, CrPC. In the next post, we examine the scope of Section 69A, IT Act to determine whether it empowers the State and Central government agencies to carry out blocks on Internet access through mobile phones (i.e., data services such as 2G, 3G and 4G) under certain circumstances. We submit that Section 69A does, and that Section 144, CrPC cannot be invoked for this purpose.

I. The Patidar Agitation in Gujarat:

This question arose in the wake of agitation in Gujarat in the Patel community. The Patels or Patidars are politically and economically influential in Gujarat, with several members of the community holding top political, bureaucratic and industrial positions. In the last couple of months, the Patidars have been agitating, demanding to be granted status as Other Backward Classes (OBC). OBC status would make the community eligible for reservations and quotas in educational institutions and for government jobs.

Towards this demand, the Patidars organised multiple rallies across Gujarat in August 2015. The largest rally, called the Kranti Rally, was held in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s capital city, on August 25, 2015. Hardik Patel, a leader of the agitation, reportedly went on hunger strike seeking that the Patidars’ demands be met by the government, and was arrested as he did not have permission to stay on the rally grounds after the rally. While media reports vary, it is certain that violence and agitation broke out after the rally. Many were injured, some lost their lives, property was destroyed, businesses suffered; the army was deployed and curfew imposed for a few days across the State.

In addition to other security measures, the State government also imposed a ban on mobile Internet services across different parts of Gujarat. Reportedly, Hardik Patel had called for a state-wide bandh over Whatsapp. The police cited “concerns of rumour-mongering and crowd mobilisation through Whatsapp” as a reason for the ban, which was instituted under Section 144, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (“CrPC”). In most of Gujarat, the ban lasted six days, from August 25 to 31, 2015, while it continued in Ahmedabad and Surat for longer.

II. The Public Interest Litigation:

A public interest petition was filed before the Gujarat High Court, challenging the mobile Internet ban. Though the petition was dismissed at the preliminary stage by Acting Chief Justice Jayant Patel and Justice Anjaria by an oral order delivered on September 15, 2015, the legal issues surrounding the ban are important and the order calls for some reflection.

In the PIL, the petitioner prayed that the Gujarat High Court declare that the notification under Section 144, CrPC, which blocked access to mobile Internet, is “void ab initio, ultra vires and unconstitutional” (para 1 of the order). The ban, argued the petitioner, violated Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution by being arbitrary and excessive, violating citizens’ right to free speech and causing businesses to suffer extensive economic damage. In any event, the power to block websites was specifically granted by Section 69A, IT Act, and so the government’s use of Section 144, CrPC to institute the mobile Internet block was legally impermissible. Not only this, but the government’s ban was excessive in that mobile Internet services were completely blocked; had the government’s concerns been about social media websites like Whatsapp or Facebook, the government could have suspended only those websites using Section 69A, IT Act. And so, the petitioner prayed that the Gujarat High Court issue a writ “permanently restraining the State government from imposing a complete or partial ban on access to mobile Internet/broadband services” in Gujarat.

The State Government saw things differently, of course. At the outset, the government argued that there was “sufficient valid ground for exercise of power” under Section 144, CrPC, to institute a mobile Internet block (para 4 of the order). Had the blocking notification not been issued, “peace could not have been restored with the other efforts made by the State for the maintenance of law and order”. The government stressed that Section 144, CrPC notifications were generally issued as a “last resort”, and in any case, the Internet had not been shut down in Gujarat; broadband and WiFi services continued to be active throughout. Since the government was the competent authority to evaluate law-and-order situations and appropriate actions, the Court ought to dismiss the petition, the State prayed.

The Court agreed with the State government, and dismissed the petition without issuing notice (para 9 of the order). The Court examined two issues in its order (very briefly):

The scope and distinction between Section 144, CrPC and Section 69A, IT Act, and whether the invocation of Section 144, CrPC to block mobile Internet services constituted an arbitrary exercise of power;
The proportionality of the blocking notification (though the Court doesn’t use the term ‘proportionality’).

We will examine the Court’s reading of Section 69A, IT Act and Section 144, CrPC, to see whether their fields of operation are in fact different.

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Pranesh Prakash, Japreet Grewal, Sahana Manjesh and Sindhu Manjesh for their invaluable inputs in clarifying arguments and niggling details for these two posts.

Geetha Hariharan is a Programme Officer with Centre for Internet & Society. Padmini Baruah is in her final year of law at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore (NLSIU) and is an intern at CIS.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-legal-validity-of-bans-on-internet-part-i

Dadri reopens debate on online hate speech

praskrishna — 2015-10-11T05:42:02Z

The friction between free speech and hate speech has become newly intense because of social media. Twitter reflected the turmoil after the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, when some tweets justified the murder as a legitimate reaction against cow-slaughter, trending the hashtag #cowmurderers.

The article by Amulya Gopalakrishnan was published in the Times of India on October 9, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

"Jo bhi gau ka mans khaye, use aur uske parivar ko turant maar do (those who eat beef should be killed along with their families)" is just one example of the kind of tweets that got an FIR filed against the handle. The UP police also booked a person for spreading inflammatory rumours about cow-smugglers killing a police officer.

Their comrades immediately alleged censorship, and various profiles with pictures of weapon-brandishing deities rallied under hashtags of support. Taslima Nasreen summed up their grievance, claiming that "free speech allows hate tweets".

There are, of course reasonable restrictions to free speech when it looks likely to spiral into violence, what a 1989 Supreme Court judgment called a "spark in a powder keg" situation. The IPC has Section 153A, 153B, 295 and 505 and more, which curb speech that promotes enmity between groups on the basis of religion, race, place, birth or language, defiles places of worship, insults religious sentiments, creates public mischief and so on. But social media presents an almost daily dilemma, and makes it clear that it is time for more discriminating decisions on what kinds of extreme speech can be gagged. As the SC judgment knocking down the over-broad Section 66A of the IT Act noted, discussion and advocacy , however, hateful or prejudiced, are not incitement.

All hate speech seeks to sharpen tensions, but not all such speech is equally damaging. As Pranesh Prakash, policy director of the Centre for Internet and Society , Bangalore, puts it, "freedom of speech operates within fields of power".Hate speech either aims to taunt and diminish a minority, or tell others in an in-group that their feelings are shared.Different countries make their own judgment calls as they balance these two values, both fundamental to a democracy: free expression and the defence of human dignity and inclusion.

Internet intermediaries, ISPs or powerful private corporations like Twitter and Facebook, have to comply with court orders and official government requests, but they are not always on the same page about unacceptable content. For a company like Twitter, for instance, the need to preserve individual voices, however discordant, is more valuable than the need to create a more perfect public sphere. It advised offended users to simply block controversial content, though recently , it has begun to consider "direct, repeated attacks on an individual" a potential violation too.

Susan Benesch, of Harvard University's Berkman Center, has suggested a framework to identify a dangerous speech act, which factors in the profile of the speaker, the emotional state of the audience, the content of the speech itself as a call to action, the social context in which it occurs, and the means used to spread it.

The UP police has a social media lab to track and scotch rumours. "That's how we recently busted a false story about a khap panchayat ordering gangrapes," says a UP police official who did not wish to be named. Rather than appealing to the social media company for takedowns -an onerous process, and one where provocations are often difficult to explain -it is easier to find and deal with the source of the content, he says. One can identify problematic material either by location or keywords, says Ponnurangam K, assistant professor at IIIT, Delhi, who has developed the social network analytics tool used by UP police. Given the speed and scale of the internet and the volume of user-generated content, legal curbs cannot be invoked for every instance of hate speech. "It is far more feasible to monitor these rumours and take preventive action on the ground, where the harm is likely to be felt, and to use the same medium to counter the rumours with truth," says Prakash. Social media was assumed to have responsible for spreading the 2011 riots in the UK, but it turned out to be even more effective in stemming the contagion, righting rumours and helping law enforcers.

During the 2013 general election in Kenya, the Umati project trawled social media for trending hate content and tried to counter its effects by exposing and shunning those advocating violence. A repository called Hatebase tries to identify local words and phrases that indicate brewing trouble, to make it easier to find the active signals of threat from the low-level hum -repeated references to cow meat in India, or "sakkiliya", a Sinhala word to disparage Tamils in Sri Lanka.

"The government should work with platforms to find the nodes of dangerous speech, to counter them, and support campaigns for those victimised," says Chinmayi Arun, research director of the Centre for Communication Governance at the National Law University, Delhi, who is leading a three-year project on online hate speech, in collaboration with the Berkman Center.

It is far more effective to boost media literacy, help people sniff out bias and propaganda, understand how photos can be morphed and fake videos passed off as real. "Law enforcers need the imagination and patience to develop these strategies, rather than try to censor controversial speech wherever possible," she says.

Of course, when IT cells of political parties are the fount of the most of these excitable handles, that's easier said than done.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-amulya-gopalakrishnan-october-9-2015-dadri-reopens-debate-on-online-hate-speech

Seminar on "Hate Speech and Social Media"

praskrishna — 2014-02-13T06:22:41Z

NALSAR University of Law, in collaboration with the British Deputy High Commission organized a seminar on Hate Speech and Social Media in Hyderabad on January 4 and 5, 2014. Chinmayi Arun was one of the speakers at the seminar.

Richa Kaul Padte was a keynote speaker on the panel on ‘Marginalised Communities and the Experience of Social Media’, while Anja Kovacs was the keynote speaker on the panel on ‘Internet - A Democratic Space?’.

This seminar focused on emerging debates on free speech, marginalisation and radicalisation in the context of the internet. Long hailed as a great democratiser, the internet has been instrumental in granting a voice to millions of people, and yet, in permitting anonymity it raises important questions of liability and responsibility. Over the course of two days, the seminar explored issues through conversations between people who have worked on various aspects of this issue, including leading jurists, lawyers, bloggers and activists who have embraced new technologies. Some of the prominent speakers at the seminar included Hon’ble Justice Madan B Lokur, Hon’ble Dr. Justice S Muralidhar, Teesta Setalvad, Geeta Seshu, Chinmayi Arun, Anja Kovacs and Apar Gupta.

Click to read the details posted on Internet Democracy Project website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/nalsar-seminar-hate-speech-social-media

Charting the Charter: Internet Rights and Principles Online

praskrishna — 2013-10-21T07:03:53Z

This workshop is being organised by IRP Coalition on October 22 in Bali Nusa Dua Convention Centre. Pranesh Prakash is participating as a panelist.

The Internet Governance Forum 2013 is being held at Bali from October 22 to 25. The overarching theme for the 2013 IGF meeting is: "Building Bridges"- Enhancing Multistakeholder Cooperation for Growth and Sustainable Development".

Read the original published on the IGF website

Theme: Human Rights / Freedom of Expression on the Internet

Since the Charter of Internet Rights and Principles was developed dialogue about diverse internet related human rights issues have emerged in various UN human rights mechanisms e.g. racism/racial discrimination, human rights defenders, women's human rights, freedom of association, business and human rights, protection of cultural heritage. The workshop will map the issues under discussion in the UNHRC against those in the Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet (‘IRP Charter’) and explore multistakeholder perspectives and best practice examples of adherence to the Charter and human rights standards from diverse regions.

The focus is on progress, opportunities and challenges to monitor and advocate for the IRP Charter provisions particularly for marginalised groups e.g. rural and indigenous peoples, disabled people, urban poor as the second part of the two workshops put forward by the IRP Coalition and partners. Wider questions that the workshop looks to cover include: How are understandings about the interrelationship of internet governance and human rights standards developing at the Human Rights Council? Aside from freedom of expression and the right to Privacy, what other human rights are important in relation to the internet? How can the Charter be used to broaden the engagement of the Human Rights Council in internet governance issues? How does the work of the HRC inform the Charter, and other internet policy documents and mechanisms?

Since the 2009 IGF, the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition has organised a range of workshops and Coalition meetings looking at the application of human rights standards (primarily those espoused in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) to the Internet. In 2010 the previous draft of the IRP Charter (http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/charter/) was launched with a rigorous discussion about what correct interpretation of existing standards is and the role of different stakeholders in relation to these.

In 2011 the IRP Charter was distilled down to 10 key advocacy points, the Ten Internet Rights and Principles (http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/campaign/). These were debated as the Coalition undertook a closer analysis of the issue of copyright protection and how it interrelated with human rights on the internet. In 2012 the Coalition looked at how the Charter was feeding in to a derivative initiative at the Council of Europe to create a user-friendly Compendium of rights of internet users. The Coalition made a close analysis of the issue of anonymity online. This year we want to focus on human rights which, while contained in the Charter, have not received high levels of attention. We also want to loop in the work of Coalition members working on human rights, women’s rights, social, cultural and economic rights as well as the recent work of the Human Rights Council (which is the most authoritative global body applying human rights to the Internet) to incorporating human rights as an integral part of the internet governance field.

Has the proponent organised a workshop with a similar subject during past IGF meetings?
Yes

Indication of how the workshop will build on but go beyond the outcomes previously reached
The IRP Coalition launched the IRP Charter and Ten Principles in 2010/2011 (www.internetrightsandprinciples.org). These launches started a vigorous and productive chain of discussions and outreach initiatives in and around IGF Meetings. These were followed up in 2011 and 2012 with IGF workshops that focused in specific issues such as copyright, access as a right, and existing rights of internet users. This year we focus on human rights which, while contained in the Charter, have not received high levels of attention. We also want to loop in the work of Coalition members working on human rights, women’s rights, social, cultural and economic rights as well as the recent work of the Human Rights Council (which is the most authoritative global body applying human rights to the Internet) to incorporating human rights as an integral part of the internet governance field. Recent events underscore that the moment has come to ground human rights principles in internet governance practice as this affects everyday life, work, and government.

Background Paper

Download Background Paper

Session Type: Roundtable

Co-organisers

Ms. Dixie Hawtin, Global Partners and Associates, Private Sector, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG
Ms. Joy Liddicoat, Association for Progressive Communications, Civil Society, New Zealand, Asia-Pacific Group
Ms. Marianne Franklin, Goldsmiths (University of London, UK)/ IRP Coalition), Civil Society, United Kingdom, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG

Have the Proponent or any of the co-organisers organised an IGF workshop before?
Yes

The link(s) to the workshop report(s)

Panelists

Please click on the biography to view the profile of the panelists:

Joy Liddicoat, Association for Progressive Communications, Female, Civil Society, New Zealand, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Frank La Rue, United Nations, Male, Civil Society, Guatemala, Latin American and Caribbean Group - Grulac
Asif Kabani, Ministry of Finance, Male, Government, Pakistan, Asia-Pacific Group
Biography
Carl Fredrik Wettermark, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Male, Government, Sweden, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Marianne Franklin, (IRP Coalition/Goldsmiths (University of London, UK), Female, Civil Society, New Zealand, Asia-Pacific Group
Biography
Pranesh Prakash, Centre for Internet and Society, Male, Civil Society, India, Asia-Pacific Group
Biography
Cornelia Kutterer, Microsoft, Female, Private Sector, BELGIUM, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Michael Rotert, eco-German Internet Industry, Male, Technical Community, Germany, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography

Moderator

Dixie Hawtin, Global Partners and Associates

Remote Moderator

Rebecca Zausmer, Global Partners and Associates

Agenda

This round table session explores the opportunities and challenges for upholding human rights standards on the internet using the IRP Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet (http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/charter/). In tandem with the session on Disabilities and Indigenous rights this session aims to:

Address a number of human rights – moving beyond freedom of expression and privacy - to consider the IRP Charter provisions for socio-economic rights, education, women’s rights and rights of the visually impaired in the online environment.
Provide an assessment of the implementation of human rights standards on the internet o date.
Feed recommendations in to the IRP Coalition initiative to create a final version of the IRP Charter (in terms of substance, process, and uses of the document in practice)

The session will start by focusing on a selection of concrete examples (such as, the PRISM revelations, the Marrakesh Treaty on exceptions and limitations to copyright for the blind, racial discrimination, education rights online) before opening to a wider discussion. It brings together diverse perspectives on the relationship between human rights and internet policy, where the human rights movement needs to engage more or more effectively, and how the IRP Charter should be developed to assist this process. The outcomes of the workshop will feed into the IRP Coalition Meeting, ‘Towards the IRP Charter 2.0’.

Inclusiveness of the Session

Panellists will make short initial statements of up to 3 minutes, each will be tasked with a particular perspective to bring and enable several rounds of the table. It will also allow ample time for audience questions and comments. The audience will be invited to ask questions, and to answer questions which the moderators will pose to the floor.

Suitability for Remote Participation

Both the IRP and the APC have a good track record of marketing their workshops across a range of email lists, websites and social media to ensure that potential remote participants know about the workshop and can participate. Remote participants will be engaged by the remote moderator who will pose questions to them and facilitate an active remote conversation alongside the conversation in situ– making links between the two wherever possible.

Questions or Comments

Please note that Mr Frank La Rue has been invited. As his office needs some time to respond we have included his name as an unconfirmed participant for the time being.

Also a note on the number of participants:
As this is a roundtable, open discussion format there are more than five speakers in order to generate the range and depth needed for this sort of interactive and dynamic discussion. The IRP Coalition has taken the lead in instigating these sorts of discussion formats in multistakeholder meetings such as the UNESCO WSIS+10 event and the Lisbon EuroDIG. The session moderator is experienced for this format and the participants aware that long speeches are not required.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/igf-2013-workshop-99-charting-the-charter-internet-rights-and-principles-online

Religious pluralism and freedom of expression in India, Europe and other countries

praskrishna — 2013-11-08T05:54:06Z

The Venice-Delhi Seminars are Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations project, in cooperation with the Jamia Millia Islamia, Seminar and the India Habitat Centre is organizing this event from October 10 to 12, 2013. Chinmayi Arun will be speaking at this event.

Click to read the full details published by Reset DOC on October 10, 2013.

This year, the Rome-based international association Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations will continue promoting dialogue between cultures and the culture of dialogue, reciprocal awareness between East and West and valorising the cultural, religious and political differences in a globalized world.

The schedule for autumn 2013 is as follows; the next Venice-Delhi Seminars will take place from October 10 to 12 in Delhi with the participation of the Indian magazine Seminar, and Jamia Millia Islamia, the Islamic University of Delhi and the India Habitat Centre. After the first meeting in the Indian capital in October 2010 on the subject “Minorities and Pluralism” (see Seminar 621, 2011) and a second meeting in Venice at the Giorgio Cini Foundation from October 18 to 20, 2012, dedicated to “Cultural differences in times of economic turbulence. Social tensions, cultural conflicts and policies of integration in Europe and India”, the Venice-Delhi Seminars have become a regular event, with one being held in Venice and the next in Delhi.

Pluralism

The project’s general framework is religious and cultural pluralism, seen through the perspective analysis of social and political processes and exchanges between East and West. Every encounter is an opportunity to deepen political, social and economic trends that run through society, like India’s and, increasingly, European society, where cultural, ethnic and political differences coexist and interact. Each meeting consists of five sessions lasting three days and papers presented by by experts and academics from all over the world attending roundtable discussions dedicated to the analysis of policies relating to minorities and the global challenge of the multi-ethnic composition of our societies.

The proceedings and more articles from our 2012 edition in Venice, Italy, are published in the September 2013 issue of Seminar magazine. You can visit its website here: www.india-seminar.com

10-12 October 2013 – Third Venice-Delhi Seminars
Coexistence and mutual respect, rights to be protected, freedom of speech and freedom of worship, blasphemy, the ethics of responsibility

The third Venice-Delhi Seminars will take place from October 10 to 12, 2013 in Delhi and will be dedicated to three days of study on the subject “Religious Pluralism and Freedom of Expression in India and Europe: Coexistence and Mutual Respect, Rights to Protect, Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Worship, Blasphemy, Ethics of Responsibility”. The objective of this second round of the “Plural Future” project will be to critically examine the growing tension between the democratic need to protect differences and the right to freedom of expression and the vital need for modern democracies to guarantee peaceful coexistence between majorities and minorities, as well as freedom of worship in conditions of cultural and religious pluralism protected from the extremist excesses of demands based on ethnicity and identity. We will therefore also analyze the public visibility of radical and extremist tendencies from the United States to Europe, to Muslim-majority countries and India.

Analysis will take place from a perspective paying particular attention to the manner in which this wave of violent opposition to dialogue and cultural differences challenges liberal democratic order, tested by a new need to implement rights and respect of minorities. Specific importance will be attributed to conditions experienced by Muslim and Christian minorities. The subject of respect between communities and the rights of minorities will be analyzed also in the European context. European, Indian and American scholars will attend.

Particular attention will paid to the media in this 2013 edition, and its role in portraying cultural and religious differences as well as its capacity to encourage or prevent the development of peaceful co-existence and an acceptance of differences in conditions of cultural, religious and ethnic pluralism.

The Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations project has been organised also so as to involve a large number of students, graduates and doctoral students.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/resetdoc-october-10-2013-religious-pluralism-and-freedom-of-expression-in-india-europe-other-countries

You will need a license to create a WhatsApp group in Kashmir

praskrishna — 2016-04-21T02:34:46Z

The internet rights activists have criticised the move stating it as unconstitutional.

The article was published by Governance Now on April 19, 2016. Pranesh Prakash tweeted on this.

Moving beyond internet ban, Kashmir’s Kupwara district issued a notice asking all admins of WhatsApp news groups to register their groups with the district authority within ten days.

With this move, the authorities are taking power in their hands to monitor WhatsApp news groups owned by private individuals. However, internet rights activists criticised it saying the move is unconstitutional as it breaches freedom of speech.

The circular is issued under the subject of ‘registering of WhatsApp news group and restrictions for spreading rumours thereof’. The district magistrate said that any spread of information by these WhatsApp news groups, “leading to untoward incidents will be dealt under the law”.

You may need a license in Kashmir to run a WhatsApp group

The valley witnessed five-day internet shutdown following the Handwara firing incident. Internet ban is a common phenomenon in Kashmir.

“For how long will the government decide whether we can communicate with each other or not? Actually, the authorities do not want us to spread the truth about the army’s atrocities far and wide,” said a resident of Handwara as quoted in Kashmir Reader.

Earlier, parts of Haryan and Gujarat also witnessed internet ban during Jat and Patidar agitation, respectively.

Blocking all internet access is clearly an unnecessary and disproportionate measure that cannot be countenanced as a ‘reasonable restriction’ on freedom of expression and the right to seek and receive information, which is an integral part of the freedom of expression,” said Pranesh Prakash.

For instance, he adds, a riot-affected woman seeking to find out the address of the nearest hospital cannot do so on her phone. “Instead of blocking access to the internet, the government should seek to quell rumours by using social networks to spread the truth, and by using social networks to warn potential rioters of the consequences,” he said.

Former Mumbai police commissioner Rakesh Maria used WhatsApp to counter rumours spread after circulation of a fake photo in January 2015.

“The way in which the ban is imposed is unreasonable. Problem is in the method that is being used in absence of guidelines, defining circumstances under which they can impose a restriction on internet sites,” says Arun Kumar, head of cyber initiatives at Observer Research Foundation (ORF).

If government formulates these rules or guidelines it will set a threshold for state or central authorities, which will define the urgency of imposing ban on internet services.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/governance-now-april-19-2016-you-will-need-a-license-to-create-whatsapp-group-in-kashmir

Hackers Take Protest to Indian Streets and Cyberspace

praskrishna — 2012-06-18T04:02:21Z

First there was self-styled Gandhian activist Anna Hazare who took to the streets to protest corruption. Now a group agitating against censorship on the Internet has arrived in India.

This article by Shreya Shah was published in the Wall Street Journal on June 8, 2012 Pranesh Prakash is quoted in this article.

Only this time, the location is cyberspace and their modus operandi hacking.

In the last few months, Anonymous –a group of hackers, or hacktivists as they like to call themselves –has gone after Web sites of political parties, government sites and Internet service providers, the latest being MTNL, to protest censorship on the Internet.

The group says they are opposing laws including the 2008 Information Technology (Amendment) Act and the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules of 2011, which they say unfairly restrict Internet freedom.

On Saturday, the hackers will take their protest to the streets, with an Occupy Wall Street-style march called ”Operation Occupy India” planned in 17 cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Nagpur in Maharashtra and Kundapur in Karnataka. The group has requested all protestors to wear Guy Fawkes masks, the symbol of Anonymous.

“This time the common man wants to help us,” an “anon,” which is what members of the group call themselves, told India Real Time.

Anonymous, which has a global presence, catapulted to fame with its attacks on Visa, Mastercard and Paypal.

This is how the group attacks Web sites: It overwhelms them with thousands of requests from different computer systems simultaneously. The Web site is unable to handle the load and crashes.

The group intensified its attacks after Internet Service Providers like Reliance, MTNL and Airtel temporarily blocked file sharing sites like Vimeo, Dailymotion, Patebin and Pirate bay, citing a Court order.

But many question the method used by Anonymous.

“I don’t believe in defacing or hacking government Web sites to prove a point,” says Ankit Fadia, a cyber security expert. “You can’t hold the government ransom,” he adds.

In an open letter to the government, Anonymous India defended its actions. It wrote that traditional ways of protesting are losing meaning and this is a new method to pressure the politicians.

Members of the group say that like a regular protest on the street, they too block the infrastructure of their opponents. Except in this case, the infrastructure is located in cyberspace.

This is a “geek method of attacking,” said the anon who spoke to India Real Time. The group does not plan to attacks sites like that of the Indian railways, for instance, which is used by the masses, he explained.

But not everyone is convinced.

The group attacked the Web site of India’s Supreme Court even when it says it does not attack Web sites used by the common man, says Pranesh Prakash, Program Director of the Center for Internet and Society.

The IT Act is another reason Anonymous is protesting. The Act gives the government the power to remove content it finds offensive. The government can also restrict public access to a Web site.

Anonymous is also protesting the Intermediary Guidelines of 2011. According to this Act, a site that hosts offensive content will have to remove it within 36 hours of a complaint against it.

As a result, Web sites like Google and Facebook are facing criminal cases for hosting objectionable content on their site.

“This government does not stand for censorship; this government does not stand for infringement of free speech. Indeed, this government does not stand for regulation of free speech,” Kapil Sibal, the Communications and Information Technology Minister told the Rajya Sabha, or the upper house of the Indian Parliament, last month.

Pranesh Prakash, of the Center for Internet and Society told India Real Time that he does not believe that Anonymous will influence policy makers. He says that the main aim of a protest is to get media attention, and in turn get the attention of the people.

But he agrees that India’s cyber laws are “hopelessly flawed” and create a framework by which not only the government but everyone can censor.

He adds, “The laws are a greater threat than Anonymous.”

Photo Source: Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/hackers-take-protest-to-indian-streets-and-cyberspace

Anonymous joins protests against Internet shutdown in Kashmir

praskrishna — 2013-03-01T04:46:06Z

Hacktivist group Anonymous joined thousands of others to protest the shutdown of internet services in Kashmir for the fourth consecutive day by authorities after the hanging of Afzal Guru, a key accused in the Parliament attack case.

Indu Nandakumar's article was published in the Economic Times on February 12, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Anonymous, which shot to fame in India after it brought down the websites of the Supreme Court and Congress Party last year, on Tuesday expressed its support to the people of Kashmir until the ban on internet and media services are lifted.

"We stand with # Kashmiras it comes to the end of its 3rd day under curfew. The comms blockade will fall. We are with you. # KashmirNow," a message posted on one of the Twitter accounts of Anonymous read.

Another Twitter account of the same group said, "#OpKashmir - Lift the media and internet blackout in #Kashmir".

Mobile internet services were suspended across Kashmir Valley on Saturday after the hanging of Afzal Guru in New Delhi. Online protests gathered steam by evening and thousands took to Twitter to express their anger censorships and blockades.

A senior official from the Department of Telecom, which had last year ordered the blocking of several Twitter accounts and websites, said internet services were blocked to avoid any further escalation of violence in Kashmir. But internet experts said a ban of communication services do not result in peace, instead it curtails the basic right of citizens to exchange messages.

"Government can ban certain class of messages and certain class of users, but definitely not a blanket ban of all services," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore-based research organisation, the Centre for Internet and Society.

Essential commodities such as medicines, newspapers etc too are in short supply in Kashmir, where three people died and over 50 were injured in clashes since Saturday.

Anonymous has also been posting photographs from the region. One of the Twitter accounts of the group, @ anon_warlockon Tuesday tweeted, "A gag has been put on everything, information at best is trickling down".

Last year, Anonymous, known for its use of Guy Fawkes masks, had organised rallies across Indian cities to protest internet censorship after India's Department of Telecom blocked over 250 websites and 30 Twitter accounts for posting communal images and videos that led to people from Northeast exit Bangalore and a few other Indian cities.

"Internet service providers in the Valley were asked by officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs to switch off connectivity on Saturday morning. There has been no further communication from the Ministry until now and we don't expect any withdrawal in the next few days," a senior industry executive with direct knowledge of the matter told ET. He added that any decision on withdrawal of the ban will be taken only after the MHA and intelligence officials take stock of the situation.

Centre of Internet's Abraham said he was not sure if messages on social media were being taken seriously by the government. "Research shows that during the times of public disruption, ban of communication services will only make things worse. Enlightened governments should know this and act accordingly."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/economic-times-feb-12-2013-indu-nandakumar-anonymous-joins-protests-against-internet-shutdown-in-kashmir

Online Abuse of Teen Girls in Kashmir Leads to Arrests

praskrishna — 2013-03-06T03:51:20Z

Online abuse and a fatwa aimed at a rock band of Muslim teenage girls in Kashmir have led to arrests and a threat of a lawsuit.

This article by Betwa Sharma was published in the New York Times on February 8, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Three men were arrested this week for posting threatening messages on the Facebook page of Praagaash, an amateur rock band in Indian-occupied Kashmir made of up Muslim girls. “The investigation is ongoing,” said Manoj Pandita, spokesman for the Jammu and Kashmir police, indicating that more arrests may follow.

The three men were charged under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which applies to “offensive” messages being sent through communication services, and Section 506 of the Ranbir Penal Code, which applies to criminal intimidation. Mr. Pandita said that it had been easy to track the I.P. addresses of the Facebook users.

A prominent human rights lawyer, Parvez Imroz of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, is planning to sue the top religious leader in Kashmir, who called for the fatwa, for “demonizing Kashmir before the international community” and for “running a parallel judicial system in the valley.”

Mr. Imroz told India Ink that human rights organizations like his needed support from the international community to highlight their concerns, and such fatwas reflected badly on the Kashmiri society. “He is diverting attention away from real issues of human rights to nonissues like music and purdah,” Mr. Imroz said.

The fatwa against the band was issued by the Grand Mufti Bashiruddin Ahmad.

In his fatwa, Mr. Ahmad advised women to only sing inside the house to other female members of the family, and wear a veil whenever they left the house. “They must stay within limits,” he said.

Following the band’s first live performance in December, Aneeqa Khalid, Noma Nazir and Farah Deeba, 10th-grade students who are 15 and 16 years old, became the target of abuse and threats on Facebook by people who accused them of being un-Islamic because they had performed in public, especially before men. Some commenters called them “sluts” and “prostitutes;” others suggested that they should be raped.

The band Praagaash, which means “darkness into light,” disbanded following a national controversy surrounding these threatening messages. The threats were condemned by many, including the state’s chief minister.

To many Kashmiris, both the fatwa and the arrests by the government are unnecessary. Some say that the controversy erupted after the state’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, got involved by expressing his support for the band on Twitter and then calling for investigation against those writing the threatening messages.

“Nobody here had a problem with the rock band,” said Aala Fazili, a doctorate student at Kashmir University, pointing out that the band’s performance in December had not led to any protests or physical threats against them.

Mr. Fazili, 32, added that people shouldn’t be arrested for writing abusive posts on Facebook. “You cannot call an abuse a threat,” he said.

Mr. Pandita, the Kashmir police spokesman, said the investigators were making a distinction between a threat and abuse on the basis of “gravity.”

Pranesh Prakash, from the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore, asked whether people who hold protests calling for the death of the author Salman Rushdie should also be arrested for making threats.

“I would hold that no expression of violent thoughts, online or offline, should be made criminal, even if it is repugnantly misogynistic, unless it takes the form of a credible threat that causes harm, or is harassment that constitutes harm,” he said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ny-times-feb-8-2013-betwa-sharma-online-abuse-of-teen-girls-in-kashmir-leads-to-arrests