The Centre for Internet and Society
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Reply to RTI Application on Blocking of website and Rule 419A of Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/reply-to-rti-application-on-blocking-of-website-and-rule-419a-of-indian-telegraph-rules-1951
<b>The Department of Telecommunications sent its reply to an RTI application from the Centre for Internet and Society. The application was sent on December 27, 2012 with reference to blocking of websites and Rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951.</b>
<p style="text-align: left; ">To<br />Shri Subodh Saxena<br />Central Public Information Officer (RTI)<br />Director (DS-II), Room No 1006, Sanchar Bhawan<br />Department of Télécommunications (DoT)<br />Ministry of Communications and Information Technology<br />20, Ashoka Road, New Delhi — 110001<br /><br />Dear Sir,<br /><b>Subject: Information on Website Blocking Requested under the Right to Information Act, 2005</b></p>
<p>1. Full Name of the Applicant: Centre for Internet & Society</p>
<p>2. Address of the Applicant</p>
<p>Mailing Address: Centre for Internet and Society<br />194, 2־C Cross,<br />Domlur Stage II,<br />Bangalore 560071</p>
<p>3. Details of the information required</p>
<p class="Bodytext1" style="text-align: justify; ">It has come to our attention that Airtel Broadband Services ("Airtel") and Mahanagar Téléphoné Nigam Limited ("MTNL") have recently blocked access to a number of domain sites for all their users across the country. Airtel has blocked Fabulous Domains (<a href="http://www.fabulous.com/">http://www.fabulous.com/</a>), BuyDomains (<a href="http://www.buvdomains.com/">http://www.buvdomains.com/</a>) and Sedo (<a href="http://sedo.co.uk/uk/home/welcome/%29%e2%96%a0">http://sedo.co.uk/uk/home/welcome/)</a>. MTNL has blocked Sedo (<a href="http://sedo.co.uk/uk/home/welcQme/">http://sedo.co.uk/uk/home/welcQme/</a>). Subscribers trying to access this website receive a message noting "This website/URL has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to Court orders or on the Directions issued by the Department of Télécommunications". In this regard, we request information on the following queries under Section 6(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005:</p>
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<li style="text-align: justify; ">Does the Department have powers to require an Internet Service Provider to block a website? If so, please provide a citation of the statute under which power is granted to the Department, as well as the safeguards prescribed to be in accordance with Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India.</li>
<li> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Did the Department order Airtel or MTNL to block any or all of the above mentioned websites? If so, please provide a copy of such order or orders. If not, what action, if at all, has been taken by the Department against Airtel and MTNL for blocking of websites?</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Has the Department ever ordered the blocking of any website? If so, please provide a list of addresses of all the websites that have been ordered to be blocked.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Please provide use the present composition of the Committee constituted under rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951.</li>
<li>Please provide us the dates and copies of the minutes of all meetings held by the Committee constituted under rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951, and copies of all their recommendations.</li>
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<p>4. Years to which the above requests pertain: 2012</p>
<p>5. Designation and address of the PIO from whom the information is required</p>
<p>Shri Subodh Saxena<br />Central Public Information Officer (RTI)<br />Director (DS-II), Room No 1006, Sanchar Bhawan<br />Department of Télécommunications (DoT)<br />Ministry of Communications and Information Technology<br />20, Ashoka Road, New Delhi — 110001</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To the best of my belief, the détails sought for fall within your authority. Further, as provided under section 6(3) of the Right to Information Act ("RTI Act"), in case this application does not fall within your authority, I request you to transfer the same in the designated time (5 days) to the concerned authority and inform me of the same immediately.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To the best of my knowledge the information sought does not fall within the restrictions contained in section 8 and 9 of the RTI Act, and any provision protecting such information in any other law for the time being in force is inapplicable due to section 22 of the RTI Act.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Please provide me this information in electronic form, via the e-mail address provided above. This to certify that I, Smitha Krishna Prasad, am a citizen of India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A fee of Rs. 10/- (Rupees Ten Only) has been made out in the form of a demand draft drawn in favour of "Pay and Accounts Officer (HQ), Department of Telecom" payable at New Delhi.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Date. Monday November 26,2012<br />Place: Bengaluru, Karnataka<br /><br /></p>
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<p style="text-align: left; "><b>Below is the reply received from the Department of Telecommunications for the above RTI application</b></p>
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<p style="text-align: center; "><b>Government of India <br />Department of Télécommunications<br />Sanchar Bhawan, 20, Ashoka Road. New Delhi -110 001 <br />(DS-CelI)</b></p>
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<th colspan="6">No. DIR(DS-II)/RTI/2009</th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th colspan="7">Dated:ll/01/2013</th>
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<p>To,<br />Centre for Internet and Society,<br />No. 194, 2-C Cross,<br />Domlur Stage II,<br />Bangalore - 560 071</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This has reference to RTI application dated 27/12/2012 with reference to Blocking of website and Rule 419A of Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951</p>
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<li style="text-align: justify; ">In this regard it is submitted that Internet Service licensees are to follow the provisions of Information Technology Act 2000 as amended from time to time. Under Information Technology Act 2000, "<b>Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009</b>" were notified on 27/10/2009.(Annexure) Aforesaid notified rules describes the "<b>Designated Officer</b>" for the purpose of issuing direction for blocking for access by the public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource under subsection (2) of Section 69(A) of the ACT. Wide Gazette Notification dated 20/01/2010 <b>Group Coordinator , Cyber Law division, Department of Information Technology</b> has been authorized and designated as "<b>Designated Officer</b>".<br /><br />As per the directions of Group Coordinator, Cyber Law division, under Information Technology Act 2000, instructions for blocking/ unblocking of websites/URLs are issued to Internet Service Licensees.<br /><br />As per the available information no instruction to Internet Service Providers has been issued for Blocking of <a href="http://www.fabulous.com/">http://www.fabulous.com/</a>, <a href="http://www.buydomains.com/">http://www.buydomains.com/</a>, <a href="http://sedo.co.uk/uk/home/welcome/">http://sedo.co.uk/uk/home/welcome/</a> and <a href="http://sedo.co.uk/uk/home/welcome/">http://sedo.co.uk/uk/home/welcome/</a> as mentioned in your RTI application.<br /><br />Copies of Blocking order for which blocking instructions issued by DoT are not being provided are not provided as per Clause 16 of "Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009" which says "Strict confidentiality shall be maintained regarding all the requests and complaints received and actions taken thereof."</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">With reference to information (Para 4 & 5 of RTI Aplication ) on Rule 419A of Indian Telegraph Rule, 1951 , the RTI is being forwarded to Dir (AS-III) & CPIO, DoT for providing the information.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The appeal, it any, may be made before Shri Nitin Jain, DDG(DS) & Appellate Authority, Department of Télécommunications, Room No. 1201, Sanchar Bhawan, 20 Ashoka Road, Nevy Delhi-110 001 within 30 days from the date of receipt of this letter.</li>
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<p class="Bodytext41">Encl: As above</p>
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<td><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Subodh.png" alt="Subodh" class="image-inline" title="Subodh" /></td>
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<td colspan="7">(Subodh Saxena) <br /> DIR (DS-II)<br /> 011-2303 6860<br /> 011-2335 9454<br /></td>
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<p>Copy to:</p>
<p><b>(I) Shri Rajiv Kumar, CPIO & Director (AS-III), DoT, New Delhi</b></p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">NOTIFICATION<br />New Delhi, the 27th October, 2009</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">G.S.R. 781 (E). — In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (z) of sub-section (2) of section 87, read with sub-section (2) of section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000 (21 of 2000), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules, namely:</p>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Short title and commencement — (1) These rules may be called the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access and Information by Public) Rules, 2009.<br />(2) They shall come into force on the date of their publication in the Official Gazette.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Definitions. — In these rules, unless the context otherwise requires. —<br />(a) "Act" means the Information Technology Act, 2000 (21 of 2000);<br />(b) "computer resource" means computer resource as defined in clause (k) of sub-section (1) of section 2 of the Act;<br />(c) "Designated Officer" means an officer designated as Designated Officer under rule 3;<br />(d) "Form" means a form appended to these rules;<br />(e) "intermediary" means an intermediary as defined in clause (w) of sub-section (1) of section 2 of the Act;<br />(f) "nodal officer" means the nodal officer designated as such under rule 4;<br />(g) "organisation" means<br /> (i) Ministries or Departments of the Government of India;<br /> (ii) State Governments and Union Territories;<br /> (iii) Any agency of the Central Government, as may be notified in the Official Gazette, by the Central Government<br />(h) "request" means the request for blocking of access by the public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource;<br />(i) "Review Committee" means the Review Committee constituted under rule 419A of Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Designated Officer — The Central Government shall designate by notification in Official Gazette, an officer of the Central Government not below the rank of a Joint Secretary, as the "Designated Officer", for the purpose of issuing direction for blocking for access by the public any information generated, transmitted. received,, stored or hosted in any computer resource under sub-section (2) of section 69A of the Act.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Nodal officer or organisation.— Every organisation for the purpose of these rules, shall designate one of its officer as the Nodal Officer and shall intimate the same to the Central Government in the Department of Information Technology under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technotogy, Government of India and also publish the name of the said Nodal Officer on their website.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Direction by Designated Officer. — The Designated Officer may, on receipt of any request from the Nodal Officer of an organisation or a competent court, by order direct any Agency of the Government or intermediary to block for access by the public any information or part thereof generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource for any of the reasons specified in sub-section (1) of section 69A of the Act.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Forwarding of requests by organisation. — (1) Any person may send their complaint to the Nodal Officer of the concerned organisation for blocking of access by the public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource:<br /> Provided that any request other than the one from the Nodal Officer of the organisation shall be sent with the approval of the Chief Secretary of the concerned State or Union territory to the Designated Officer.<br /> Provided further that in case a Union territory has no Chief Secretary, then, such request may be approved by the Adviser to the Administrator of that Union territory.<br />(2) The organisation shall examine the complaint received under sub-rule (1) to satisfy themselves about the need for taking of action in relation to the reasons enumerated in sub-section (1) of section 69A of the Act and after being satisfied, it shall send the request through its Nodal Officer to the Designated Officer in the format specified in the Form appended to these rules.<br />(3) The Designated Officer shall not entertain any complaint or request for blocking of information directly from any person.<br />(4) The request shall be in writing on the letter head of the respective organisation, complete in all respects and may be sent either by mail or by fax or by e-mail signed with electronic signature of the Nodal Officer.<br /> Provided that in case the request is sent by fax or by e-mail which is not signed with electronic signature, the Nodal Officer shall provide a signed copy of the request so as to reach the Designated Officer within a period of three days of receipt of the request by such fax or e-mail.<br />(5) On receipt, each request shall be assigned a number along with the date and time of its receipt by the Designated Officer and he shall acknowledge the receipt thereof to the Nodal Officer within a period of twenty four hours of its receipt.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Committee for examinatlon of request.— The request along with the printed sample content of the alleged offending information or part thereof shall be examined by a committee consisting of the Designated Officer as its chairperson and representatives, not below the rank of Joint Secretary in Ministries of Law and Justice, Home Affairs. Information and Broadcasting and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team appointed under sub-section (1) of section 70B of the Act.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Examination of request.— (1) On receipt of request under rule 6, the Designated Officer shall make all reasonable efforts to identify the person or intermediary who has hosted the information or part thereof as well as the computer resource on which such information or part thereof is being hosted and where he is able to identify such person or intermediary and the computer resource hosting the informalion or part thereof which have been requested to be blocked for public access, he shall issue a notice by way of letters or fax or e-mail signed with electronic signatures to such person or intermediary in control of such computer resource to appear and submit their reply and clarifications, if any, before the committee referred to in rule 7, at a specified date and time, which shall not be less than forty-eight hours from the time of receipt of such notice by such person or intermediary.<br />(2) In case of non-appearance of such person or intermediary, who has been served with the notice under sub-rule (I), before the committee on such specified date and time, the committee shall give specific recommendation in writing with respect to the request received from the Nodal Officer, based on the information available with the committee.<br />(3) In case, such a person or intermediary, who has been served with the notice under sub-rule (1), is a foreign entity or body corporate as identified by the Designated Officer, notice shall be sent by way of letters or fax or e-mail signed with electronic signatures to such foreign entity or body corporate and any such foreign entity or body corporate shall respond to such a notice within the time specified therein, failing which the committee shall give specific recommendation in writing with respect to the request received from the Nodal Officer, based on the information available with the committee.<br />(4) The committee referred to in rule 7 shall examine the request and printed sample information and consider whether the request is covered within the scope of sub-section (1) of section 69A of the Act and that it is justifiable to block such information or part thereof and shall give specific recommendation in writing with respect to the request received from the Nodal Officer.<br />(5) The designated Officer shall submit the recommendation of the committee, in respect of the request for blocking of information along with the details sent by the Nodal Officer to the Secretary in the Department of Information Technology under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India (hereinafter referred to as the "Secretary, Department of Information Technology").<br />(6) The Designated Officer, on approval of the request by the Secretary, Department of Information Technology, shall direct any agency of the Government or the intermediary to block the offending information generaled, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in their computer resource for public access within time limit specified in the direction:<br /> Provided that in case the request of the Nodal Officer is not approved by the Secretary, Department of Information Technology, the Designated Officer shall convey the same to such Nodal Officer.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Blocking of Information in cases of emergency.— (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in rules 7 and 8, the Designated Officer, in any case of emergency nature, for which no delay is acceptable, shall examine the request and printed sample information and consider whether the request is within the scope of sub-section (1) of section 69A of the Act and it is necessary or expedient and justifiable to block such information or part thereof and submit the request with specific recommendations in writing to Secretary, Department of Information Technology.<br />(2) In a case of emergency nature, tne Secretary. Department of Information Technology may, if he is satisfied that it is necessary or expedent and justifiable for blocking for public access of any information or part thereof through any computer resource and after recording reasons in writing as an interim measure issue such directions as he may consider necessary to such identified or identifiable persons or intermediary in control of such computer resource hosting such information or part thereof without giving him an opportunity of hearing.<br />(3) The Designated Officer, at ihe earliest but not later than forty-eight hours of issue of direction under sub-rule 2, shall bring the request before the committee referred to in rule 7 for its consideration and recommendation.<br />(4) On receipt of recommendations of committee, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, shall pass the final order as regard to approval of such request and in case the request for blocking is not approved by the Secretary. Department of Information Technology in his final order, the interim direction issued under sub-rule (2) shall be revoked and the person or intermediary in control of such information shall be accordingly directed to unblock the information for public access.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Process of order of court for blocking of Information — In case of an order from a competent court in India for blocking of any information or part thereof generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in a computer resource, the Designated Officer shall, immediately on receipt of certified copy of the court order, submit it to the Secretary, Department of Information Technology and initiate action as directed by the court.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Expeditious disposal of request - The request received from the Nodal Officer shall be decided expeditiously which in no case shall be more than seven working days from the date of receipt of the request.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Action for non-compliance of direction by Intermediary — In case the intermediary fails to comply with the direction issued to him under rule 9, the Designated Officer shall, with the prior approval of the Secretary, Department of Information Technology, initiate appropriate action as may be required to comply with the provisions of sub-section (3) of section 69A of the Act.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Intermediary to designate one person to receive and handle directions — (1) Every intermediary shall designate at least one person to receive and handle the directions for blocking of access by the public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource under these rules.<br />(2) The designated person of the intermediary shall acknowledge receipt of the directions to the Designated Officer within two hours on receipt of the direction through acknowledgement letter or fax or e-mail signed with electronic signature.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Meeting of Review Commlttee — The Review Committee shall meet at least once in two months and record its findings whether the directions issued under these rules are in accordance with the provisions of sub-seclion (1) of section 69A of the Act and if is of the opinion that the directions are not in accordance with the provisions referred above, it may set aside the directions and issue order for unblocking of said information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in a computer resource for public access.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Maintenance of records by Designated Officer — The Designated Officer shall maintain complete record of the request received and action taken thereof, in electronic database and also in register of the cases of blocking for public access of the information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in a computer resource.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Requests and complaints to be confidential — Strict confidentiality shall be maintained regarding all the requests and complaints received and actions taken thereof.</li>
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<p style="text-align: center; "><b>FORM</b><br />(See rule 6(2))</p>
<p style="text-align: left; "><b> A. Complaint <br /></b></p>
<ol>
<li>Name of the complainant: --_________________________________________________________________<br />(Person who has sent the complaint to the Ministry/Department/State Govt./Nodal Officer)</li>
<li>Address: ________________________________________________________________________________<br /> ________________________________________________________________________________<br /> City: ______________________________ Pin Code: __________________</li>
<li>Telephone: ________________________ (prefix STD code) </li>
<li>Fax (if any): _______________________</li>
<li>Mobile (if any): ______________________</li>
<li>Email (if any): __________________________________<br /><br /><b>B. Details of website/computer resource/intermediary/offending information hosted on the website </b><br />(Please give details wherever known)</li>
<li>URL / web address: ____________________________________</li>
<li>IP Address: _______________________________________</li>
<li>Hyperlink: ________________________________________</li>
<li>Server/Proxy Server address: ________________________________________</li>
<li>Name of the Intermediary: _________________________________________</li>
<li>URL of the Intermediary: __________________________________________<br />(Please attach screenshot/printout of the offending information)</li>
<li>Address or location of intermediary in case the intermediary is telecom service provider, network service provider, internet service provider, web-hosting service provider and cyber cafe or other form of intermediary for which information under points (7), (8), (9), (10), (11) and (12) are not available.<br />___________________________________________________________<br />___________________________________________________________<br />___________________________________________________________<br /><b>C. Details of Request for blocking</b></li>
<li>Recommendations/Comments of the Ministry/State Govt: ________________________<br />________________________________________________________________________<br />________________________________________________________________________</li>
<li>The level at which the comments/recommendation have been approved <br />(Please specify designation) ________________________________________________</li>
<li>Have the complaint been examined in Ministry / State Government: Y/N</li>
<li>If yes, under which of the following reasons it falls (please tick):<br />(i) Interest of sovereignty or integrity of India<br />(ii) Defence of India<br />(iii) Security of the State<br />(iv) Friendly relations with foreign states<br />(v) Public order<br />(vi) For preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence relating to above<br /><b>D. Details of the Nodal Officer, forwarding the complaint along with recommendation of the Ministry/State Govt</b>. <b>and related enclosures</b></li>
<li>Name of the Nodal Officer: ___________________________________________</li>
<li>Designation: ______________________________________________________</li>
<li>Organisation: _____________________________________________________</li>
<li>Address: ________________________________________________ _________<br /> <br /> __________________________________________________________<br /><br /> City: __________________________ Pin Code: _________________</li>
<li>Telephone: ___________________________ (prefix STD code) </li>
<li>Fax (if any) _____________________</li>
<li>Mobile (if any) ______________________</li>
<li>Email (if any): ___________________________<br /><b>E: Any other information:</b><br />F: Enclosures:
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<br />3855GI/09-5 </li>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/reply-to-rti-application-on-blocking-of-website-and-rule-419a-of-indian-telegraph-rules-1951'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/reply-to-rti-application-on-blocking-of-website-and-rule-419a-of-indian-telegraph-rules-1951</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionSocial MediaInternet GovernanceCensorship2013-03-21T07:58:12ZPageRegulating Social Media: Unrealistic, Impossible, Necessary?
https://cis-india.org/news/ndtv-video-april-11-2013-the-social-network-regulating-social-media-unrealistic-impossible-necessary
<b>The Press Council of India Chairperson Justice Markandey Katju calls for regulating social media, saying it will prevent offensive material coming into the public domain. But is it really necessary to regulate the social media? If yes, is it possible to do it?</b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">This was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-social-network/regulating-social-media-unrealistic-impossible-necessary/271183">published by NDTV</a> on April 11, 2013.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">NDTV aired a discussion by Ashwin S Kumar, Co-editor, Columnist, The Unreal Times; Kunal Majumder, Assitant Editor, Tehelka.com and Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society on April 11, 2013 in response to Justice Katju's comments on bringing 'social media' under the Press Council of India.</p>
<p>Pranesh Prakash laid out four brief points:</p>
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<li style="text-align: justify; ">'Social media' allows coffee house discussion and toilet wall scrawls to seem like print publications, but it's a mistake to treat it the same way we do print publications. The UK is now planning on using prosecutorial flexibility to refrain from prosecuting simple offensive speech on social media. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The same laws should apply online as they do offline (but how the apply, can differ), and that is currently the case. Most content-related offences in the IPC, etc., are offences online as well as offline. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Editors and journalists exist for most print publications and broadcast programmes, while that isn't true for most 'social media'. So guidelines applicable to the press mostly won't be applicable online.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Electronic publications (like Medianama, The Daily Dish, Huffington Post) which consider themselves engaged in a journalistic venture present a special problem that we <b class="moz-txt-star">do<span class="moz-txt-tag"> </span></b> need to have a public conversation about.</li>
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<hr />
<h3>Video</h3>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wzTJO3Vvmhk" width="320"></iframe></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/ndtv-video-april-11-2013-the-social-network-regulating-social-media-unrealistic-impossible-necessary'>https://cis-india.org/news/ndtv-video-april-11-2013-the-social-network-regulating-social-media-unrealistic-impossible-necessary</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet GovernanceVideoCensorshipSocial Networking2013-04-30T16:50:13ZNews ItemReading the Fine Script: Service Providers, Terms and Conditions and Consumer Rights
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/reading-between-the-lines-service-providers-terms-and-conditions-and-consumer-rights
<b>This year, an increasing number of incidents, related to consumer rights and service providers, have come to light. This blog illustrates the facts of the cases, and discusses the main issues at stake, namely, the role and responsibilities of providers of platforms for user-created content with regard to consumer rights.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>On 1st July, 2014 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against T-Mobile USA,</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn1">[1]</a><span> accusing the service provider of 'cramming' customers bills, with millions of dollars of unauthorized charges. Recently, another service provider, received flak from regulators and users worldwide, after it published a paper, 'Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks'.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn2">[2]</a><span> The paper described Facebook's experiment on more than 600,000 users, to determine whether manipulating user-generated content, would affect the emotions of its users.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In both incidents the terms that should ensure the protection of their user's legal rights, were used to gain consent for actions on behalf of the service providers, that were not anticipated at the time of agreeing to the terms and conditions (T&Cs) by the consumer. More precisely, both cases point to the underlying issue of how users are bound by T&Cs, and in a mediated online landscape—highlight, the need to pay attention to the regulations that govern the online engagement of users.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>I have read and agree to the terms</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In his statement, Chief Executive Officer, John Legere might have referred to T-Mobile as "the most pro-consumer company in the industry",<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn3">[3]</a> however the FTC investigation revelations, that many customers never authorized the charges, suggest otherwise. The FTC investigation also found that, T-Mobile received 35-40 per cent of the amount charged for subscriptions, that were made largely through innocuous services, that customers had been signed up to, without their knowledge or consent. Last month news broke, that just under 700,000 users 'unknowingly' participated in the Facebook study, and while the legality and ethics of the experiment are being debated, what is clear is that Facebook violated consumer rights by not providing the choice to opt in or out, or even the knowledge of such social or psychological experiments to its users.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Both incidents boil down to the sensitive question of consent. While binding agreements around the world work on the condition of consent, how do we define it and what are the implications of agreeing to the terms?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Terms of Service: Conditions are subject to change </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A legal necessity, the existing terms of service (TOS)—as they are also known—as an acceptance mechanism are deeply broken. The policies of online service providers are often, too long, and with no shorter or multilingual versions, require substantial effort on part of the user to go through in detail. A 2008 Carnegie Mellon study estimated it would take an average user 244 hours every year to go through the policies they agree to online.<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn4">[4]</a> Based on the study, Atlantic's Alexis C. Madrigal derived that reading all of the privacy policies an average Internet user encounters in a year, would take 76 working days.<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn5">[5]</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The costs of time are multiplied by the fact that terms of services change with technology, making it very hard for a user to keep track of all of the changes over time. Moreover, many services providers do not even commit to the obligation of notifying the users of any changes in the TOS. Microsoft, Skype, Amazon, YouTube are examples of some of the service providers that have not committed to any obligations of notification of changes and often, there are no mechanisms in place to ensure that service providers are keeping users updated.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook has said that the recent social experiment is perfectly legal under its TOS,<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn6">[6]</a> the question of fairness of the conditions of users consent remain debatable. Facebook has a broad copyright license that goes beyond its operating requirements, such as the right to 'sublicense'. The copyright also does not end when users stop using the service, unless the content has been deleted by everyone else.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">More importantly, since 2007, Facebook has brought major changes to their lengthy TOS about every year.<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn7">[7]</a> And while many point that Facebook is transparent, as it solicits feedback preceding changes to their terms, the accountability remains questionable, as the results are not binding unless 30% of the actual users vote. Facebook can and does, track users and shares their data across websites, and has no obligation or mechanism to inform users of the takedown requests.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Courts in different jurisdictions under different laws may come to different conclusions regarding these practices, especially about whether changing terms without notifying users is acceptable or not. Living in a society more protective of consumer rights is however, no safeguard, as TOS often include a clause of choice of law which allow companies to select jurisdictions whose laws govern the terms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The recent experiment bypassed the need for informed user consent due to Facebook's Data Use Policy<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn8">[8]</a>, which states that once an account has been created, user data can be used for 'internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.' While the users worldwide may be outraged, legally, Facebook acted within its rights as the decision fell within the scope of T&Cs that users consented to. The incident's most positive impact might be in taking the questions of Facebook responsibilities towards protecting users, including informing them of the usage of their data and changes in data privacy terms, to a worldwide audience.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>My right is bigger than yours</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most TOS agreements, written by lawyers to protect the interests of the companies add to the complexities of privacy, in an increasingly user-generated digital world. Often, intentionally complicated agreements, conflict with existing data and user rights across jurisdictions and chip away at rights like ownership, privacy and even the ability to sue. With conditions that that allow for change in terms at anytime, existing users do not have ownership or control over their data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In April New York Times, reported of updates to the legal policy of General Mills (GM), the multibillion-dollar food company.<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn9">[9]</a> The update broadly asserted that consumers interacting with the company in a variety of ways and venues no longer can sue GM, but must instead, submit any complaint to “informal negotiation” or arbitration. Since then, GM has backtracked and clarified that “online communities” mentioned in the policy referred only to those online communities hosted by the company on its own websites.<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn10">[10]</a> Clarification aside, as Julia Duncan, Director of Federal programs at American Association for Justice points out, the update in the terms were so broad, that they were open to wide interpretation and anything that consumers purchase from the company could have been held to this clause. <a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn11">[11]</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Data and whose rights?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Following Snowden revelations, data privacy has become a contentious issue in the EU, and TOS, that allow the service providers to unilaterally alter terms of the contract, will face many challenges in the future. In March Edward Snowden sent his testimony to the European Parliament calling for greater accountability and highlighted that in "a global, interconnected world where, when national laws fail like this, our international laws provide for another level of accountability."<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn12">[12]</a> Following the testimony came the European Parliament's vote in favor of new safeguards on the personal data of EU citizens, when it’s transferred to non-EU.<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn13">[13]</a> The new regulations seek to give users more control over their personal data including the right to ask for data from companies that control it and seek to place the burden of proof on the service providers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The regulation places responsibility on companies, including third-parties involved in data collection, transfer and storing and greater transparency on concerned requests for information. The amendment reinforces data subject right to seek erasure of data and obliges concerned parties to communicate data rectification. Also, earlier this year, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in favor of the 'right to be forgotten'<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn14">[14]</a>. The ECJ ruling recognised 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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In May, the Norwegian Consumer Council filed a complaint with the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman, “… based on the discrepancies between Norwegian Law and the standard terms and conditions applicable to the Apple iCloud service...”, and, “...in breach of the law regarding control of marketing and standard agreements.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn15">[15]</a> The council based its complaint on the results of a study, published earlier this year, that found terms were hazy and varied across services including iCloud, Drop Box, Google Drive, Jotta Cloud, and Microsoft OneDrive. The Norwegian Council study found that Google TOS, allow for users content to be used for other purposes than storage, including by partners and that it has rights of usage even after the service is cancelled. None of the providers provide a guarantee that data is safe from loss, while many, have the ability to terminate an account without notice. All of the service providers can change the terms of service but only Google and Microsoft give an advance notice.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The study also found service providers lacking with respect to European privacy standards, with many allowing for browsing of user content. Tellingly, Google had received a fine in January by the French Data Protection Authority, that stated regarding Google's TOS, "permits itself to combine all the data it collects about its users across all of its services without any legal basis."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>To blame or not to blame</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook is facing a probe by the UK Information Commissioner's Office, to assess if the experiment conducted in 2012 was a violation of data privacy laws.<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn16">[16]</a> The FTC asked the court to order T-Mobile USA, to stop mobile cramming, provide refunds and give up any revenues from the practice. The existing mechanisms of online consent, do not simplify the task of agreeing to multiple documents and services at once, a complexity which manifolds, with the involvement of third parties.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Unsurprisingly, T-Mobile's Legere termed the FTC lawsuit misdirected and blamed the companies providing the text services for the cramming.<a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftn17">[17]</a> He felt those providers should be held accountable, despite allegations that T-Mobile's billing practices made it difficult for consumers to detect that they were being charged for unauthorized services and having shared revenues with third-party providers. Interestingly, this is the first action against a wireless carrier for cramming and the FTC has a precedent of going after smaller companies that provide the services.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The FTC charged T-Mobile USA with deceptive billing practices in putting the crammed charges under a total for 'use charges' and 'premium services' and failure to highlight that portion of the charge was towards third-party charges. Further, the company urged customers to take complaints to vendors and was not forthcoming with refunds. For now, T-Mobile may be able to share the blame, the incident brings to question its accountability, especially as going forward it has entered a pact along with other carriers in USA including Verizon and AT&T, agreeing to stop billing customers for third-party services. Even when practices such as cramming are deemed illegal, it does not necessarily mean that harm has been prevented. Often users bear the burden of claiming refunds and litigation comes at a cost while even after being fined companies could have succeeded in profiting from their actions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Conclusion </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Unfair terms and conditions may arise when service providers include terms that are difficult to understand or vague in their scope. TOS that prevent users from taking legal action, negate liability for service providers actions despite the companies actions that may have a direct bearing on users, are also considered unfair. More importantly, any term that is hidden till after signing the contract, or a term giving the provider the right to change the contract to their benefit including wider rights for service provider wide in comparison to users such as a term that that makes it very difficult for users to end a contract create an imbalance. These issues get further complicated when the companies control and profiting from data are doing so with user generated data provided free to the platform.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the knowledge economy, web companies play a decisive role as even though they work for profit, the profit is derived out of the knowledge held by individuals and groups. In their function of aggregating human knowledge, they collect and provide opportunities for feedback of the outcomes of individual choices. The significance of consent becomes a critical part of the equation when harnessing individual information. In France, consent is part of the four conditions necessary to be forming a valid contract (article 1108 of the Code Civil).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The cases highlight the complexities that are inherent in the existing mechanisms of online consent. The question of consent has many underlying layers such as reasonable notice and contractual obligations related to consent such as those explored in the case in Canada, which looked at whether clauses of TOS were communicated reasonably to the user, a topic for another blog. For now, we must remember that by creating and organising social knowledge that further human activity, service providers, serve a powerful function. And as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility.</p>
<hr size="1" style="text-align: justify; " width="33%" />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref1">[1]</a> 'FTC Alleges T-Mobile Crammed Bogus Charges onto Customers’ Phone Bills', published 1 July, 2014. See: http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/07/ftc-alleges-t-mobile-crammed-bogus-charges-customers-phone-bills</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref2">[2]</a> 'Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks', Adam D. I. Kramera,1, Jamie E. Guilloryb, and Jeffrey T. Hancock, published March 25, 2014. See:http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full.pdf+html?sid=2610b655-db67-453d-bcb6-da4efeebf534</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref3">[3]</a> 'U.S. sues T-Mobile USA, alleges bogus charges on phone bills, Reuters published 1st July, 2014 See: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/01/us-tmobile-ftc-idUSKBN0F656E20140701</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref4">[4]</a> 'The Cost of Reading Privacy Policies', Aleecia M. McDonald and Lorrie Faith Cranor, published I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society 2008 Privacy Year in Review issue. See: http://lorrie.cranor.org/pubs/readingPolicyCost-authorDraft.pdf</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref5">[5]</a> 'Reading the Privacy Policies You Encounter in a Year Would Take 76 Work Days', Alexis C. Madrigal, published The Atlantic, March 2012 See: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/reading-the-privacy-policies-you-encounter-in-a-year-would-take-76-work-days/253851/</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref6">[6]</a> Facebook Legal Terms. See: https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref7">[7]</a> 'Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline', Kurt Opsahl, Published Electronic Frontier Foundation , April 28, 2010 See:https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-timeline</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref8">[8]</a> Facebook Data Use Policy. See: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref9">[9]</a> 'When ‘Liking’ a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue', Stephanie Strom, published in New York Times on April 16, 2014 See: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/business/when-liking-a-brand-online-voids-the-right-to-sue.html?ref=business</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref10">[10]</a> Explaining our website privacy policy and legal terms, published April 17, 2014 See:http://www.blog.generalmills.com/2014/04/explaining-our-website-privacy-policy-and-legal-terms/#sthash.B5URM3et.dpufhttp://www.blog.generalmills.com/2014/04/explaining-our-website-privacy-policy-and-legal-terms/</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref11">[11]</a> General Mills Amends New Legal Policies, Stephanie Strom, published in New York Times on 1http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/business/general-mills-amends-new-legal-policies.html?_r=0</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref12">[12]</a> Edward Snowden Statement to European Parliament published March 7, 2014. See: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201403/20140307ATT80674/20140307ATT80674EN.pdf</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref13">[13]</a> Progress on EU data protection reform now irreversible following European Parliament vote, published 12 March 201 See: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-186_en.htm</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref14">[14]</a> European Court of Justice rules Internet Search Engine Operator responsible for Processing Personal Data Published by Third Parties, Jyoti Panday, published on CIS blog on May 14, 2014. See: http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ecj-rules-internet-search-engine-operator-responsible-for-processing-personal-data-published-by-third-parties</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref15">[15]</a> Complaint regarding Apple iCloud’s terms and conditions , published on 13 May 2014 See:http://www.forbrukerradet.no/_attachment/1175090/binary/29927</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref16">[16]</a> 'Facebook faces UK probe over emotion study' See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28102550</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="file:///C:/Users/jyoti/Desktop/Reading%20the%20fine%20script%20When%20terms%20and%20conditions%20apply.docx#_ftnref17">[17]</a> Our Reaction to the FTC Lawsuit See: http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/our-reaction-to-the-ftc-lawsuit.htm</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/reading-between-the-lines-service-providers-terms-and-conditions-and-consumer-rights'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/reading-between-the-lines-service-providers-terms-and-conditions-and-consumer-rights</a>
</p>
No publisherjyotiSocial MediaConsumer RightsGoogleinternet and societyPrivacyTransparency and AccountabilityIntermediary LiabilityAccountabilityFacebookData ProtectionPoliciesSafety2014-07-04T06:31:37ZBlog EntryPublic Art, Technology and Citizenship - Blank Noise Project
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/blank-noise-citizenship
<b>Jasmeen Patheja speaks about the active citizen in the digital age, its challenges in the public and private spheres and interdisciplinary methods to overcome them.</b>
<div align="center">
<pre><img src="https://cis-india.org/copy2_of_copy_of_PhotoComic.jpg/image_preview" alt="Reconceptualizing Eve-Teasing" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Reconceptualizing Eve-Teasing" />
<strong>
CHANGE-MAKER:</strong> Jasmeen Patheja
<strong>
PROJECT</strong>: Blank Noise Project: A volunteer-led arts collective community
<strong>
STRATEGY OF CHANGE</strong>:
Fostering an active, participatory and horizontal model of citizenship,
empowering its volunteers to participate politically and address issues
of street sexual harassments in the public sphere.
<strong>
METHOD OF CHANGE</strong>: Public space interventions using community art and technology.</pre>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">To open the interview series for the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/" class="external-link">Making Change project</a>, I interviewed <a class="external-link" href="http://fellows.ted.com/profiles/jasmeen-patheja">Jasmeen Patheja</a>. She is the founder of <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/">Blank Noise</a>, a <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_Noise">volunteer-led arts collective community that started in Bangalore</a> and has now spread to Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Calcutta, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Lucknow. It seeks to address street sexual harassment and violence by triggering dialogue and building testimonials around notions of "teasing" and "harassment" in the public discourse. The collective has garnered attention and momentum since it was founded in 2003, and ever since, it’s fostering a model of active citizenship across India through its volunteer network. The story of Blank Noise and the working of community art with technology highlight the need to create spaces of expression and experience in which civic and political creativity can develop and unfold organically.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">One of the main reflections stemming from my conversation with Jasmeen was the question of how technologies can create a sense of ownership and active citizenship. At the moment, we are moving on to a scenario in which technology has a more pervasive and complex presence. It is no longer judged merely on its connective utility, but is also understood as an actor, a space and a context within the ecosystem of social change and political democratic systems. For this reason, it is paramount to get to know the citizen that is being exposed to, influenced and impacted by these technologies and identify the ways in which his self-identity, social membership and political participation (King and Waldron 1988, Turner 1986, 1990) are being molded by them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In this post, I aim to unpack ‘active citizenship’ drawing from political science literature around citizenship and civic engagement. The analysis will be based on two dichotomies proposed by Turner: the tension between the active-passive citizen, and the contradictions between its private and public presence. I will then refer to Westmeister and Kahnein, Kabeer, Gaventa and Bennett to identify the type of citizen that Jasmeen Patheja hopes to yield through her project and the main challenges of manoeuvering in the public space. Finally, I will look at some of the tactics taken by Blank Noise to reconcile these tensions through community art and technology. This exploration of citizenship is a first stage in the journey of detecting the undertones of citizen action for social change in the digital era.</p>
<h2 align="center" style="text-align: justify;">Unpacking Citizenship</h2>
<h3><br />ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE CITIZEN</h3>
<p><strong>What is the difference between an active and a passive citizen?</strong></p>
<div class="pullquote">A passive citizen comes to existence as a subject, recipient or client of the state (...) regards its rights as privileges handed down from above (...)complies with norms yet does not act to change circumstances (...)and its security and survival are merely determined by constitutional and common law traditions</div>
<p align="justify">Turner places the citizenship question on two points of contention. The first: the vectorial nature of citizenship and how to recognize an ‘active or passive’ citizen. According to his analysis, a citizen either comes to existence from above as mere subject of the state, or from below as an active bearer of its rights (Mann 1987, Ullmann 1975, Turner 1990). The force and direction from which the citizen emerges has important implications for the self-identity of the individual, its confidence and disposition for political participation (Merrifield, 2001). A passive citizen regards its rights as privileges handed down from above, in such a way that citizenship becomes a strategy for social integration and cooperation (Mann, 1986). Westheimer and Kahne find the manifestation of this model in what they call a “Personally Responsible Citizen”: a dutiful citizen who complies with norms, pays taxes and obeys laws, yet does not act to change the circumstances of other communities (2004). However, defining the citizen as a passive actor constraints its role within its network. If the citizen’ security and survival are merely determined by constitutional and common law traditions, and the negotiation between institutions and the individual (Weber 1958 - refer to Turner 1990), the individual is a disempowered recipient or client (Cornwall, 2007) as opposed to the proactive agent Blank Noise looks to recruit and shape through heir interventions.</p>
<p>Patheja, as shown by the interview, aims to disrupt the passive citizen model by fostering political participation and putting its counterpart: ’the active citizen’ forward. Blank Noise believes the citizen must ground its claims from the grassroots and grow from below; yet still be visible and present in the public space, redefining problematic concepts looming in society’s social imaginary; what Turner would describe as revolutionary citizenship (1990).</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>How is your practice building a stronger model of citizenship?</strong><br />Change cannot happen only at one level. It would involve more people and different groups from different communities. For example, with citizen-led street action; we can’t end it there. It needs to push home the cause and make [the issues] visible with the government. How do we work with the government? Learning to ask and not assume it’s all their responsibility, but learning to assert our citizenship. What does it mean to do this? What does it mean to ask for safer cities in a way that it doesn’t become somebody else’s business entirely but that it’s about being able to see we are a society. We must understand the process of citizenship; what it means to be in a democratic country and what means to be a female citizen in it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p align="center"><img src="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/blank-noise-citizenship" alt="null" align="middle" title="Public Art, Technology and Citizenship - Blank Noise Project" /><img src="https://cis-india.org/SafeCityPledgeDelhi.jpg/image_preview" alt="Safe City Pledge - Delhi" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Safe City Pledge - Delhi" /></p>
<p align="center">Safe City Pledge - Delhi<br /> <img src="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/SafeCityPledgeMumbai.jpg/image_preview" alt="Safe City Pledge - Mumbai" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Safe City Pledge - Mumbai" /><br />Safe City Pledge - Mumbai<br />Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHMm">http://bit.do/fHMm</a></span></p>
<blockquote>
<p>The message is: “this is your city, this is your space. Don’t be apologetic for your presence” And over time, Action Heros are reporting change: ”I'm getting my space. I'm not thinking twice about what I have to wear.” [...]So it was not only about a vocabulary shift, but a shift in attitude.</p>
</blockquote>
<div align="justify;" class="pullquote">
<p><br />An active citizen comes from below as an active bearer of its rights (...), feels impelled to engage and mobilize its network (...) keeps government and community members in check (...) and evolves with a higher sense of individual purpose favoring solidarity and maintaining networks of community action.</p>
</div>
<p align="justify"> </p>
<p align="justify">Westheimer and Kahne label this stronger orientation towards a social-change approach as the second degree of civic engagement or as the behaviour of a <strong>‘participatory citizen</strong>’; an individual who feels impelled to engage and mobilize its network, skills and action to respond to a community need. This participation impetus is one of Patheja’s main expectations from its Action Hero Network. However, this entails relying on intimate shifts of behaviour and attitude among the volunteers, which are in essence hard to demand, inculcate and entrench by a third party.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Their approach also reflects a vision of citizenship that relies on collective action (Montgomery, 2004) to, not only keep the government in check as suggested by Westheimer and Kahnne, but other community and society members as well. From Bennett’s point of view and taking the role of information technologies into account, he would define the ideal Action Hero as a self-actualizing citizen. In contrast to its counterpart: the dutiful citizen, who sees its obligation to participate in government-centered activities, the AC evolves with higher sense of individual purpose, favouring and maintaining networks of community action, backed up by a growing distrust in media and the government. In this sense the role of technology is also paramount to how Blank Noise spreads its predicament and expands its outreach:</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="normal"><strong>What is the role of technology and media in your project?</strong><br />Using the web for example, we happened to stumble upon blogging and we realized there was a community there. Once [Action Heroes] started blogging and the press started writing about it, it created a community further. So, going back to the fact that our constant thread of conversation has been the web, there is a large percentage of the English speaking youth who are action hero agents anidd now have the responsibility of taking the conversations and actions forward.</p>
<p class="normal">On the other hand, this is not always the case. In Delhi we did an event in collaboration with Action Aid. Many of the Action Aid volunteers weren’t necessarily on Facebook. They were people who were largely Hindi speaking; their stories were about harassment in slums and these were men and women wanting to do something about the issue. So being a loose volunteer is one way, but identifying different communities is also important. Every space is a point of engagement and we use different forms of media to enable that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Citizen participation, communication and mobilization mechanisms, mediated by the state in the past, are now taken up by the people in the form of social protest, civil disobedience, digital activism, consumerism, etc. (Bennett, 2008). The emphasis on collective action also calls for a broader understanding of the citizen, away from the state-conferred rights and duties, and a definition that includes solidarity and membership to broader communities (Ellison 1997), Heater and Kabeer defines this as a “horizontal view” that stresses the relationship between citizens over that of the state and the individual (Heater 2002, Kabeer 2007) and Berlin has also made the connection between group identity and affiliation as a building block of citizenship (1969).</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="normal">[on Giving Letters to Strangers] We trigger a conversation and it takes its own journey. Over time, what does it take to lean back and relax? Each person participates establishing their own level of comfort and every person’s narrative is different. [The project is] happening in Delhi while it is happening in Bangalore; allowing it to happen in a very individual, self-confrontational and at the same time, collective experience. They are doing this alone knowing that others are doing the same.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;"><br /><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/LettersStrangers.jpg/image_preview" alt="Giving out letters to Strangers" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Giving out letters to Strangers" /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Dear Stranger</strong>:<br />Giving out letters to strangers in the streets of Bangalore. Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHJw">http://bit.do/fHJw</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHJw"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_LettersStrangers2.jpg/image_preview" alt="Giving out letters to Strangers 2" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Giving out letters to Strangers 2" /><br /></a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In this way, Blank Noise has envisioned and designed a project that fosters an active, participatory, self-actualizing and horizontal model of citizenship. This combination builds a citizen prototype with a positive disposition and attitude to civic action; traits that Gaventa identifies as elements of empowerment and political agency that can derive into higher possibilities for social change. Having citizens identify community’s ailments as their own and their network’s responsibility, results in conversations that act as causal nexus of community action. The main challenge at the moment is the implementation of this model. To what extent will the Action Hero represent this model uniformly and steadily, preventing dissonance between Blank Noise’s discourse and its practice. And secondly, how will Blank Noise volunteers negotiate their political participation between public and private spaces?</p>
<h3>PRIVATE VS. PUBLIC SPACE</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Where should the active citizen operate?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second tension on citizenship, as identified by Turner, is its political expression on the public arena versus its manifestation on the individual’s private space. We asked Jasmeen about the crises and spaces in which Blank Noise is operating:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>To what crisis is the project responding to?</strong><br />The project responds to the crises and experiences of street harassment. To the sense of getting defensive, agitated, angry; creating a wall and feeling vulnerable in a city. Blank Noise was initiated at a time were street harassment was disregarded and dismissed as teasing. This ‘eve-teasing’, just going by the pulse of things, included concepts of molestation and sexual violence. There was denial, there was silence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;">First point on the public vs. private dilemma lies on the issue at hand. Volunteers are working to re-conceptualize social norms around ‘safety’, ‘agency’ and ‘gender’, that are not only deeply entrenched in society, but that can also be traced back to the private domain of traditions and culture at the household level. By openly discussing ‘sexual harassment’ in the public space and enabling volunteers to express and act on the basis of a new understanding of citizenship and freedom, the collective is possibly also redefining dynamics at the private space of its volunteers. What is more, the motivation and determination to be an Action Hero, as mentioned by Patheja, must be grounded in a "<em>personal shift and challenge</em>".</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>How does this translate it into citizens taking ownership of the cause and sustained behavioral change in everyday practices?</strong><br />Anger is a good starting point. It is worrying when there is no anger. And then it has to be a personal shift. We’ve learned from conversations and feedback that volunteers who would say: “we came to address the issue and we are realizing that we are doing something in ourselves”. So what is the spirit of an Action Hero? Allowing something to shift and challenging something in yourself. Last year for example we worked towards having locality specific Action Hero networks and on how this intuitive citizen can become a full citizen, in terms of being an informed citizen as well.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;" class="normal"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_ActionHeroGame.jpg/image_preview" alt="Action Hero Game" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Action Hero Game" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" class="normal">Acton Hero Game. Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHKq">http://bit.do/fHKq</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="normal">The expectation of a personal pledge at the individual, community and public level, signals the project is blurring the lines between the private and public domain and fostering the politicization of the citizen at all fronts. This suggests that in order for the claims and behaviour of Action Heroes to become sustainable, they must also trickle into the common citizen’s routine. In words of Arendt: <em>“the space of appearance comes into being whenever men are together in the manner of speech and action, predating all formal constitutions of the public realm” </em>(1989). Establishing the private-public space as a common ground works towards bringing consistency and coherence to the interventions, yet it remains in many ways problematic and threatening to individual freedoms.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Does your project create new spaces for citizen expression and action?</strong><em><br /></em>Our role is to build testimonials and translate them back into the public domain. An example of this is the blogathon that happened in 2006, initiated by our Action Hero. She said: let’s invite bloggers to share their experiences of street harassment. 4-5 male and female Action Heroes made the event happen and in a couple of days we had hundreds and hundreds of testimonials and people talking about this for the first time. Maybe it was the first time speaking about it, remembering things that happened ages ago and that they had never shared. Suddenly the web was seen as a space where people could speak. Suddenly people had so much to say about the issue, the person dismissing the issue and their relationship with their body and the city.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/TalktoMe1.JPG/image_preview" alt="Talk to Me" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Talk to Me" /><br /><strong>Talk To Me:</strong><br />Creating spaces for conversation and collaboration. Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHKq">http://bit.do/fHKq</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Turner reflects on the French revolution tradition to shed light on this particular challenge for active citizenship, as what bound Frenchmen together was their citizen identity (Baker 1987). Passing on from state subjects, to actively voicing their political, civic and social aspirations coupled with meaningful mechanisms of participation. However, how do we reconcile this tradition of positive democracy with the American understanding of citizenship that enshrines the autonomous sanctity of the private space. American individualism values personal success and the main way to exercise political participation is through voluntary associations that do not represent a large-scale force -or a threat- with enough power to shape their lives (Bellah et. al 2008, Turner 1990). Translating this to the Bangalorean context: a changing society in which community- based traditions in the household are coexisting with an agitated and growingly individualist youth culture; the issues and interventions must be addressed in an implicational manner. The connections between the issue and individual freedoms must be made, in order for these actors to be willing to politicize their action in both the public and private spheres.</p>
<h3><strong>MIDDLE CLASS ACTIVISM<br /></strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Can everybody be an active citizen?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second challenge is rooted in the socio-economic group that comprises the body of volunteers of Blank Noise. I asked Jasmeen the extent to which the Action Hero Network was being led by middle class citizens.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Are you only reaching out to the middle class activist that has the resources to be part of the Blank Noise project?</strong><br /> Yes and no. A large percentage of our volunteers are usually web-savvy, English speaking, teenagers or in their early 20s. Others have been around for the last decade. The mainstream media also reports back mainly to the web-savvy groups. But it is also about one action hero inspiring another Action Hero. I find [the project] fascinating in terms of the spaces it leaks into. Some people tell me they were at their religious meeting and they overheard two women talking about the project, who were not necessarily web-savvy. Ultimately the media is not only reporting us but we see them as point of engagement in which more and more citizens take ownership of the issue. Although our network is largely urban middle class, we are at the point where we collaborate largely with other groups that are working with different communities so it completes the entire picture. The question is: how do you take the conversation forward? What can be that medium? and what kind of technology can get to people?</p>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;" class="pullquote"><br />
<div align="right">
<div align="left">“We use different strategies to enable dialogue across communities. It could be on the street, on the blog, within a workshop; the web has been a constant space. If you are an Action Hero, yes you may be web-savvy, but you also carry the responsibility to take the conversation to another space."</div>
Jasmeen Patheja</div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><br />This demographic is ultimately an interest group leading a movement and has taken on the responsibility of spreading the call to action among its network. Foregoing the assumption that every Indian citizen wants to challenge concepts of sexual harassment in the city, the fact that one group is spreading a specific opinion puts forward a tension between the dynamics of public social protest and the existence of privatized dissent. Turner reflects on Mill’s On Liberty and shows how this could entail a threat of spreading mass opinion to the extent it makes all people alike (Turner, 1990).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Kabeer also highlights this by exploring the tension between universality versus particularity — a debate that questions the extent to which human rights advocacy in the public sphere will be equally received and supported by every group, given diversity of opinion within as well as obstacles to freedom of speech. Nyamu-Musembi attempts to bridge this dichotomy by framing universality as “the experience of resistance to general oppression” and particularity as “how resistance speaks to each relevant social context”. In order to have the issue speak to all citizen groups, Blank Noise is currently also depending on the the ability of its Action Heroes to pass on a message that speaks to the different needs and cultural sensibilities of communities who do not belong to the Anglo-speaking middle class it is currently operating with.<br /><br />In response to having the protest of a specific social group translate into homogenized dissent, Jasmeen is looking to increase her outreach by approaching and working with other groups.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>How can you build effective solidarity networks among middle class activists, their networks and further communities?</strong><br />It is an attitude we are trying to push forward: have that conversation with your grandma; with your domestic help. We would love to do something with domestic workers for example. We don’t hear enough stories of who empowers or harasses them. That’s definitely a rising concern within the collective. We really need to have the complete spectrum and what kind of technology or strategies can be used to get it. Identifying these groups is a proposed future project and also an ongoing preoccupation. For now, our role is to trigger conversations and have them take their own journey.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">METHODS FOR CHANGE</h3>
<p><strong>How does the combination of art and technology foster active citizenship?<br /></strong></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;"></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Some of the strategies Blank Noise has devised to overcome these obstacles relate back to the interdisciplinary design of its interventions. First, they are designed to be highly visible and aimed at triggering dialogue. This enables opinions and thoughts to flow from the private space into the public realm. Also, community art and technology as tools of expression and reflection, work as effective channels for responses to flow back and forth between both spaces.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Why did you take a multi-stakeholder approach and brought together technology and art?</strong><br />The entire collective is really based on defining strategies and identifying approaches to breaking denial and building conversation. Our role is enabling dialogue across forms of media and using different strategies to enable dialogue across communities. There are also lots of questions of how to create an art practice that can be collaborative and participatory. Where does art exist? How can art exist, be, feel confrontational? Can arte provoke? How can we build testimonials? Could be on the street, on the blog, twitter or within a workshop. The web has been a constant space. We also work with the web in a way that we have a growing community of Action Heroes, and if you are web-savvy, you carry the responsibility to take the conversation to another space.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_Twitter.jpg/image_preview" alt="Twitter" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Twitter" /><br />Twitter campaign. Courtesy of: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHLK">http://bit.do/fHLK</a></span><br /><br /><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Ineverasked1.jpg/image_preview" alt="I never asked for it" class="image-inline image-inline" title="I never asked for it" /><br />Public art installation to redefine sexual harassment and eve-teasing. Courtesy of Caravan Magazine: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHLV">http://bit.do/fHLV</a></span></p>
<p align="justify">Bennett and his work on civic engagement in the digital age, notes that one of the main strategies for positive civic engagement is nurturing creative and expressive actions in this generation.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>How does this approach work towards creating sustainable change?</strong><em><br /></em>We are creating tool kits for different ideas so the community can take it forward. There are many creative processes that equip them to initiate action in a community space. For instance, the Yelahanka Action Heroes workshop (http://yelahankaactionheroes.wordpress.com/), was a one month initiative that got Sristhi students to arrive to action heroism through games, like the Hahaha Sangha for example. We invited women out of their homes, and we would speak through pure laughter, gibberish and a sense of play. In doing that, people felt they knew each other. Anonymity was broken, people felt comfortable and safety was established. We are working towards creating safe public spaces and going beyond the biases that come from language or through age. But through the Hahaha Sangha we found there is still a need for facilitators to continue the project with the purpose of creating a safe space. Also, one of our interns is in charge of creating an Action Hero College Network and spreading information about different events, calendars, etc. It is still fluid but we are moving in that direction. Action Heroes are the strength of the project.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_Hahaha.jpg/image_preview" alt="Hahaha" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Hahaha" /><br />Hahaha Sangha sessions - Courtesy of Blank Noise blog <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHMb">http://bit.do/fHMb</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The ideal of an engaged youth must be sustained by the empowerment of young people; getting them to recognize their personal expression and identities in collective spaces (Bennett, 2008). By setting in place mechanisms and opportunities to critically dissect societal problems and develop a political perspective as put forward by Westheimer and Kahne, as well as the awareness, self-identity and political confidence to act, as noted by Gaventa, the Blank Noise interventions become a context in which active citizenship is more likely.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Conclusion</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This analysis, part of the Methods of Social Change research project, aimed to shed light on how change-makers such as Blank Noise still place a heavy consideration on the notion of citizenship when designing, framing and implementing their projects. What is more, it is paramount to identify the working characteristics of an ‘active citizen’ and reflect on whether these are desirable and necessary in the populace to make political and social change more likely. It also contributes to the Making Change project by unpacking the workings of a change actor that is not confined to the ‘category of citizen’ but is still closely linked to processes of citizen action and social change in Bangalore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As seen throughout this post, the analysis of our citizen is not grounded on its relationship with the state, but instead on its disposition, self-identity and notion of social membership. After identifying our ideal active citizen: an active bearer of his rights, that defines itself horizontally in relation to other citizens and their rights, participates in political processes and is informed about and at odds with power imbalances, the Blank Noise experience demonstrated spatial tensions in implementing this ideal and practice in the public and private realms. Designing strategies and identifying technologies that enable a flow of thought and action between both spaces is a way of restructuring the ecosystem in which volunteers from the Action Hero Network interact with each other, reclaim their citizenship and alter the status quo from within. While Blank Noise is not starting a revolution, it is consolidating a process of steady and growing resistance in the public and private discourse of sexual harassment and eve-teasing in the city.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Shah also notes there are implicit codes allowing only certain people to embrace this model of citizenship. This was evident on the demographic that comprises the activist bases of Blank Noise and the risks of homogenizing the political space with their discourse of change. Jasmeen Patheja brought this point forward herself, but with full confidence on the ability of dialogue and conversation to keep luring other social groups and communities into joining the debate. We discussed opportunities from exploring the foreign women experience in the public space in India to expanding the Blank Noise basis through simultaneous international interventions enabled and coordinated through technology. The network is ever-growing and its mechanisms of change are constantly innovating and adapting through its content. In the meantime, the ‘active citizen’ remains at the core of it all, pushing the project forward; fighting among other battles, that of its identity’s reassertion in the landscape of change.</p>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify;">Sources</h2>
<ol>
<li>Arendt, Hannah (1989) The Human Condition. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press.</li>
<li>Baker, Keith Michael. <em>The French Revolution and the creation of modern political culture</em>. Vol. 3. Pergamon Press, 1987.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Bennett, W. Lance. "Changing citizenship in the digital age." <em>Civic life online: Learning how digital media can engage youth</em> 1 (2008): 1-24.</li>
<li>Berlin, Isaiah. "Two concepts of liberty." <em>Berlin, I</em> (1969): 118-172.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Bellah, Robert Neelly, ed. <em>Habits of the heart: individualism and commitment in American life: with a new preface</em>. University of California Pr, 2008.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Cornwall, Andrea, and Vera Schatten Coelho, eds. <em>Spaces for change?: the politics of citizen participation in new democratic arenas</em>. Vol. 4. Zed Books, 2007.</li>
<li>Ellison, N. (1997) ‘Towards a new social politics: citizenship and reflexivity in late modernity’, Sociology, 31(4): 697–717.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Gaventa, John, and Rajesh Tandon “Citizen engagements in a globalizing world." <em>Globalizing citizens: New dynamics of inclusion and exclusion</em> (2010): 3-30.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Heater, D. (2002) World Citizenship: Cosmopolitan Thinking and Its Opponents, London: Continuum</li>
<li>Kabeer, Naila, ed. <em>Inclusive citizenship: Meanings and expressions</em>. Vol. 1. Zed Books, 2005.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Kathryn Montgomery et al., Youth as E-Citizens: Engaging the Digital Generation. Center for Social Media, 2004. Retrieved February 15, 2007. <a href="http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/ecitizens/project.htm">http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/ecitizens/project.htm</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Mann, Michael. "Ruling class strategies and citizenship". <em>Sociology </em>21, no.3 (1987): 339-354</li>
<li>Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? <em>Hivos Knowledge Program. </em>April 30, 2013.</li>
<li>Turner, Bryan. Outline of a Theory of Citizenship. Sociology (May 1990), 24 (2), pg. 189-217</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Westheimer, Joel, and Joseph Kahne. "What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy." <em>American educational research journal</em> 41, no. 2 (2004): 237-269</li></ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/blank-noise-citizenship'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/blank-noise-citizenship</a>
</p>
No publisherdenisseSocial MediaWeb PoliticsDigital NativesMaking ChangeBlank Noise ProjectResearchers at Work2015-04-17T10:43:55ZBlog EntryPastebin, Dailymotion, Github blocked after DoT order: Report
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-anupam-saxena-december-31-2014-pastein-dailymotion-github-blocked-after-dot-order
<b>A number of Indian users are reporting they're not able to access websites such as Pastebin, DailyMotion and Github while accessing the internet through providers such as BSNL and Vodafone.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Anupam Saxena was <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Pastebin-Dailymotion-Github-blocked-after-DoT-order-Report/articleshow/45701713.cms">published in the Times of India</a> on December 31, 2014. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The block was first reported by Pastebin, a website where you can store text online for a set period of time, through its social media accounts on December 19. In a follow-up post on December 26, the site posted that it was still blocked in India on the directions of the Indian government.A number of users also posted about the blocks on Reddit threads confirming that the sites have been blocked by Vodafone, BSNL and Hathway, among others.It now appears that the blocks are being carried out on the instructions of DoT (Department of Telecom). The telecom body reportedly issued a notification regarding the same on December 17. A screenshot of the circular has been posted on Twitter by Pranesh Prakash.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The notification mentions that 32 URLs including Pastebin, video sharing sites Vimeo and DailyMotion, Internet archive site archive.org and Github.com( a web-based software code repository), have been blocked under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. DoT has also asked ISPs to submit compliance reports. However, we have not been able to verify the authenticity of the circular.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the time of writing this story, we could not access Pastebin, DailyMotion and Github on Vodafone 3G and our office network that has access via dedicated lines. Vodafone is not displaying any errors and is simply blocking access. However, a number of users report that they're getting an error that says 'the site is blocked as per the instructions of Competent Authority.' However, we were able to access all the websites on Airtel 3G.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span id="advenueINTEXT" style="float:left; "> </span><span style="float:left; "><span id="advenueINTEXT" style="float:left; "> </span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="float:left; "><br /></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-anupam-saxena-december-31-2014-pastein-dailymotion-github-blocked-after-dot-order'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-anupam-saxena-december-31-2014-pastein-dailymotion-github-blocked-after-dot-order</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet GovernanceChilling EffectCensorship2015-01-03T04:17:48ZNews ItemOutrage before sharing
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-nikhil-varma-september-9-2015-outrage-before-sharing
<b>Has the social media converted people into a lynch mob that seeks out justice and passes judgement instantly, without bothering to hear both sides of the story? </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nikhil Varma was <a class="external-link" href="http://m.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/outrage-before-sharing/article7633402.ece">published in the Hindu on September 9, 2015</a>. Rohini Lakshané was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet has changed the way we communicate in more ways than we can imagine. Apart from being a medium to share pictures and updates with family and friends, social media has also become an arena where political debates are a commonplace and people are quick to make judgements. The social media space has become one where superlatives are commonly used and videos or conversations about inappropriate behaviour or even a tweet or Facebook post has a tendency to go viral and snowball into a shaming of the individual or organisation in question, without bothering to hear out the other side of the story. Outraging can be over anything, from the faults of the Government, to lay people who sometimes find themselves the subject of an online shaming campaign.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Recently, an FB user put up pictures of a person, who she claimed misbehaved with her on a street in Delhi. Within a few hours, the man’s picture went viral and he was arrested by the police, even as he was called names and abused on social media networks. A few days later, eyewitness accounts corroborated the man’s account of the incident. The response online now put the girl at fault and blamed her for politicising the issue. The initial response to the video of the Rohtak sisters bashing up alleged molesters also saw the outrage shifting sides.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">How does one deal with people making judgements with a click of a button? Does online shaming dent the chances of people getting justice in genuine cases of assault?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rohini Lakshané, a researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society says, “Online, public shaming is a useful and often effective strategy for calling out unacceptable behaviour when recourse to other remedies is tedious, time-consuming, or non-existent. Its flipside is that shaming online could lead to mob justice or a witch-hunt. The onus should be on the viewers or readers of such an act of shaming to not take the law into their own hands and on the news media to do their basic duty of checking facts before publishing or broadcasting anything.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">She adds, “People use social networking sites, among other things, as verandas where they can gather gossip, and talk about their interests. If people jumping the gun and being judgemental offline isn’t a cause for concern, I don’t see why it should be when it happens online.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On checks, Rohini contends, “They would not be in the interest of free speech. It would, of course, make a difference if social media users paused to think.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">V. Shakti, Social Media and Branding Professional, points out that the mass adoption of social media platforms has had positive and negative effects. “It has ensured that anyone can reach out and get any information. The flip side is that this power to reach millions needs to be handled with care and responsibility. The Jasleen Kaur incident is a glaring reflection. Such is the mindset of people online that anyone who is shamed is assumed guilty and derided. Sometimes the shaming does permanent damage to the target and the effects are life-long. The minute Jasleen posted a picture online, even the media jumped in calling the guy a ‘pervert’, if this were some other country, they would be sued. We need to understand that un-shaming is not an option and hence be careful when throwing mud at someone online. Remember, it could be you tomorrow. Think, verify and then act. Like I always say, there are three sides to every story - yours, mine and the truth.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For psychiatrist and Integrative medicine specialist Shyam Bhatt, online shaming is a combination of a sense of mob justice and the feeling of participating in a cause. “It is easy to sign up for a cause online, you can click share and feel good about yourself. People also tend to get swayed by what their friend circles are talking about.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Social media user Praveen Rao feels an attempt to feel involved with causes is responsible for this phenomenon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“It is important for people to check the authenticity and wait for a clear picture to emerge before talking about something. However, in the rush to appear clued in, people tend to share anything that goes viral, without pausing to think if someone’s life could be ruined. It is a good tool to call out genuine cases of misbehaviour and assault, but mob justice should be avoided.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-nikhil-varma-september-9-2015-outrage-before-sharing'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-nikhil-varma-september-9-2015-outrage-before-sharing</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2015-09-20T17:08:14ZNews ItemOnline Censorship: How Government should Approach Regulation of Speech
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-december-2-2012-sunil-abraham-online-censorship
<b>Why is there a constant brouhaha in India about online censorship? What must be done to address this?</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham's article was <a class="external-link" href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-12-02/news/35530550_1_internet-censorship-speech-unintended-consequences">published in the Economic Times</a> on December 2, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of course, we must get the basics right — 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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To begin with, speech is regulated across the world. Even in the US — contrary to popular impression in India — speech is regulated both online and offline.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The harm caused by speech is often proportionate to the power of the person speaking — 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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Censorship by the state has to be reserved for the rarest of rare circumstances. This is because censorship usually results in unintended consequences.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Circumventing Censorship</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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."<br /><br />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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In India, and even when the government has had legitimate reasons to regulate speech, there have been unintended consequences.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In both cases the circumvention of censorship by the users has resulted in a worsening situation for law-enforcement organisations — VPNs and applications like WhatsApp are much more difficult to monitor and regulate.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Mixed Memes</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 360° blanket surveillance to regulate speech, but as Gilmore again puts it, "If you're watching everybody, you're watching nobody."<br /><br />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".</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-december-2-2012-sunil-abraham-online-censorship'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-december-2-2012-sunil-abraham-online-censorship</a>
</p>
No publishersunilSocial MediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-12-05T07:06:52ZBlog EntryNow, Twitter too caught up in Cambridge Analytica controversy
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-april-30-2018-prasun-sonwalkar-vidhi-choudhury-now-twitter-too-caught-up-in-cambridge-analytica-controversy
<b>Twitter does not share a break-up of users by region, the platform has less than 100 million users in India.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Prasun Sonwalkar and Vidhi Choudhury was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/tech/now-twitter-too-caught-up-in-cambridge-analytica-controversy/story-3SMBniRitMG7Ne85AX86wL.html">Hindustan Times</a> on April 30, 2018. Sunil Abraham was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Social media company Twitter Inc sold data to the University of Cambridge academic Aleksandr Kogan who harvested millions of Facebook users’ information without their knowledge, it has emerged, although the company has clarified that no private data was accessed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It isn’t clear whether any of the data pertained to Indian users.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter does not share a break-up of users by region, the platform has less than 100 million users in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kogan, who created tools that allowed political consultancy Cambridge Analytica to psychologically profile and target voters, bought the data from the microblogging website in 2015, well before the recent scandal, involving use of the data of Facebook users, came to light.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to The Daily Telegraph, Kogan bought data on tweets, user names, photos, profiles and locations over a five-month period between December 2014 and April 2015 through his company Global Science Research (GSR). Twitter said it had banned GSR and Cambridge Analytica from buying data or running advertisements on the website and that no private data had been accessed, while Kogan insisted the data had only been used to create "brand reports" and "survey extender tools" and that he had not violated Twitter's policies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The daily reported that Twitter charges companies and organisations for large data sets that are particularly useful for gleaning public opinion or receptiveness to certain topics and ideas, although Twitter bans companies from using the data to derive sensitive political information or matching it with personal information obtained elsewhere.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A Twitter spokesman confirmed the ban and said: "Twitter has also made the policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned and operated by Cambridge Analytica. This decision is based on our determination that Cambridge Analytica operates using a business model that inherently conflicts with acceptable Twitter Ads business practices. "Cambridge Analytica may remain an organic user on our platform, in accordance with the Twitter Rules."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The company said it does not allow "inferring or deriving sensitive information like race or political affiliation, or attempts to match a user's Twitter information with other personal identifiers" and that it had staff in place to police this "rigorously".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham, founder for think tank Centre for Internet and Society said: “Even though Twitter claims it has contracts in place and staff for contractual enforcement, I cannot understand how they will prevent those buying their data from inferring race and political affiliation. Especially in jurisdictions like ours without comprehensive data protection law.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A Cambridge Analytica spokesman said the company used Twitter for political advertising but insisted that it had never "undertaken a project with GSR focusing on Twitter data and Cambridge Analytica has never received Twitter data from GSR”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Delhi-based lawyer Apar Gupta said, “Since we do not have a data protection law at present we are more or less dependent on the proactive disclosures by Twitter. Facebook is not a gold standard of upholding user rights and it is hoped that we soon have a regulator that can enforce such disclosures and place penalties.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On 5 April, Facebook said user data of more than 560,000 Indians may have been harvested by British researcher Cambridge Analytica, at the centre of a recent storm over data breaches and potential privacy violations on the social media network.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Twitter or Facebook are not alone in harvesting and storing user data. This is a widespread industry practice that relies on profiling. Such breaches and malpractices will continue to occur till we have a set of defined norms and enforceable penalties to protect user rights,” Gupta further added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Only 335 users in India installed the thisisyourdigitallife app developed by academic Kogan and his company Global Science Research that may have been possibly at the centre of the data breaches, according to Facebook. The 335 people make up just 0.1% of the app’s total worldwide installs. Users agreed to take a personality test and have their data collected by the app, which then went on to also access information about the test-takers’ Facebook friends, leading to the accumulation of a much larger data pool.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter Inc’s spokesperson said in an e-mail that an internal review conducted by it showed GSR had not accessed any private data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Unlike many other services, Twitter is public by its nature. People come to Twitter to speak publicly, and public Tweets are viewable and searchable by anyone. In 2015, Global Science Research (GSR) did have one-time API access to a random sample of public Tweets from a five-month period from December 2014 to April 2015,” the company statement added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is basically information that users chose to make public.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-april-30-2018-prasun-sonwalkar-vidhi-choudhury-now-twitter-too-caught-up-in-cambridge-analytica-controversy'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-april-30-2018-prasun-sonwalkar-vidhi-choudhury-now-twitter-too-caught-up-in-cambridge-analytica-controversy</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminSocial MediaInternet GovernancePrivacy2018-05-02T02:49:25ZNews ItemNow trending: Regional Indian language social media networks
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/hindustan-times-kanika-sharma-february-14-2016-now-trending-regional-indian-language-social-media-networks
<b>How many languages did you speak today? Chances are there was a lot of English at work and at home, but at least a sprinkling of Hindi (or Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil or Kannada) when you were chatting, gossiping or joking with friends and family.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Kanika Sharma was published in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/more-lifestyle/now-trending-regional-indian-language-social-media-networks/story-DObjK5OD84L3adFBKPkOTL.html">Hindustan Times</a> on February 14, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">You toggle so effortlessly that you probably don’t notice it, except when the option is no longer available — when arguing with a non-English-speaking cabbie while on vacation, for instance, or trying to write a heartfelt message to a faraway friend on Facebook.<br /><br />And that’s the key reason for the host of regional Indian-language social media platforms that have been popping up over the past four years—Shabdanagari and Mooshak in Hindi, in 2015; ejibON for Bengali, in 2014; Prasangik for Assamese, in 2013; Muganool in Tamil, in 2012; with an early start made by Vismayanagari (Kannada; 2008).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I set up Muganool.com out of love for the language and culture, and of course because it is so much easier to express oneself in one’s mother tongue,” says Sathish Kumar, 31, a software solutions company owner. “On Muganool, the feed is much better, you get relevant news and people’s views making them a delight to read. On Facebook, there’s just too much of timepass.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/tech/facebook-and-whatsapp-top-social-networking-apps-in-india-report/story-aFKy3mrMkkhQbKxr44ngHI.html?utm_source=read" shape="rect"><span class="st_readmore_sp">Read: Facebook and WhatsApp top social networking apps in India, says report</span> </a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most of these platforms are modelled on Facebook. You can post updates, links and videos on a newsfeed, share and repost links, form groups and live chat.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some are even named after their inspiration — Muganool, for instance, comes from the Tamil Mugam for Face and Nool for Book.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many go a step further. Shabdanagari has discussion forums, Prasanagik has a crowd-sourced encyclopedia section and ejibON has a crowd-funding tab.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For users, the differentiator has been this sense of community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“It’s too much of a crowd on Facebook,” says Umashankara BS , 39, a Bengaluru-based marketing professional and Vismayanagari user. “Here, I feel like I know who I’m talking to, and they know me. We share opinions about politics and literature, and once a month 15 of us meet at a Bengaluru café. That’s not something I would dream of doing via Facebook.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Property consultant Siddharth Bora, 35, who left Assam for Delhi a decade ago, describes Prasangik as his home away from home.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/logged-in-generation-next-requires-digital-de-addiction/story-MvisL6aRVk7LR4qtLHEYnJ.html?utm_source=read" shape="rect"><span class="st_readmore_sp">Read: Logged in generation next requires digital de-addiction</span> </a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“It takes me back more than an STD call can,” he says. “Prasangik feels intimate, almost private. While on Facebook it is considered rude to post content in the vernacular or go on about elements of your culture, here that is exactly what a lot of us do. From other homesick migrants to my mother in Assam, a 67-year-old retired lecturer.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It seems strange to hear the word ‘intimacy’ when talking about interaction on social media, but it’s a concept that keeps coming up among users of the regional-language sites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Users take pains to give feedback and comment on post, unlike Facebook, where most content is lost in the crowd and clamour,” says Pankaj Trivedi, 53, a college staffer from Gujarat and a Shabdanagari user. “Also, since it is a language the users are confident in, conversations tend to sound more courteous. People are polite to one another. I know that there is a certain kind of audience that enjoys reading my posts and that makes me more comfortable posting on Shabdanagari.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On ejibON (meaning ‘e-life’), a community has been formed across borders, with 10,000 users in India and Bangladesh bonding over their love of the language — and the idea of an undivided Bengal.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Language can be such a great unifier,” says Bangladesh-based Maruf Sunny, 28, web developer and founder of ejibON. “The aim of this website is to build a sense of community across borders and religions to celebrate the Bengali community online.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Thinking vs Feeling</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These days, we think in one language and feel in another, says, Sunil Abraham, executive director of The Centre for Internet and Society. “Whether it is music, literature or even relationships — it feels truer and more ‘authentic’ in our mother tongue. So, despite a lot of English content and services online, we still yearn for our own languages in the online world. This is precisely why Wikipedia in regional languages has become so popular.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For greater representation of Indian languages online, Gaur’s website actively encourages people to embrace and personalise their Hindi as they do their English.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I want users to coin and combine words, use hashtags,” he says. “Eventually, I want more Indians to voice their opinions online so that the English-speaking elite are not counted as the voice of the nation. Today, whatever trends on Twitter is taken as the opinion of the majority. That’s just inaccurate.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With thrice as many people offline in India as online, and most of them non-English-speakers, the potential of such websites is immense, Abraham points out. The stumbling block, of course, will be the resources — internet access and electricity.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Meanwhile, the money is already flowing in. Last month, Shabdanagari.com raised $200,000 (about Rs 1.35 crore) from Indian investors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The way forward lies in governmental support, says Abraham.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Indic language technologies are not sufficiently developed because of insufficient investment by the government,” he adds. “Existing work needs to be promoted and technology infrastructure developed to protect and promote India’s linguistic heritage.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/hindustan-times-kanika-sharma-february-14-2016-now-trending-regional-indian-language-social-media-networks'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/hindustan-times-kanika-sharma-february-14-2016-now-trending-regional-indian-language-social-media-networks</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaAccess to Knowledge2016-02-15T01:44:56ZNews ItemNo to homosexuals, yes to their vote
https://cis-india.org/news/dna-march-21-2014-yogesh-pawar-no-to-homosexuals-yes-to-their-vote
<b>The ad appears at the bottom of the page. It has BJP’s symbol and Modi’s photograph displayed prominently. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Yogesh Pawar was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-no-to-homosexuals-yes-to-their-vote-1970889">published in DNA</a> on March 21, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In a hotly contested election where every vote will count, the scramble among political parties to scrounge for votes is understandable. Yet, what would you make of a party that hates a community but wants their votes? The BJP had opposed any move to nullify Supreme Court's order re-criminalizing consensual sex among consenting adults, dealing a huge setback to any move to scrap or dilute Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Party chief Rajnath Singh went to the extent of saying, "Gay sex is not natural and we cannot support something which is unnatural."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is why the gay community across the country has expressed surprise to find a BJP ad asking for votes on the popular gay social media dating website grindr. The ad which will obviously lead to to a lot of red faces in the BJP, appears at the bottom of the page has both the party' lotus symbol and their prime-ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's photograph displayed prominently. It exhorts voters to vote BJP to stop price rise.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"This exposes the party's hypocrisy," guffawed India's pioneering gay rights activist Ashok Row Kavi. "So you want our votes and not us. I'm glad this has happened. The country will finally know the true face of falsehood of the party."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He's not alone. Many from the community have taken to social media sites like facebook and twitter to make their disgust known. Counselling psychologist Deepak Kashyap is one of them. "So, #BJP says it'd never support the "unnatural act" of homosexuality, but #NaMO has no qualms about asking for support on gay dating apps, like grindr! What a sham(e)!" he posted.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Linking most homophobia with an intense struggle with latent homosexuality Kashyap, the University of Bristol pass-out and equal rights activist for the LGBTQ community told <b>dna</b>, "Whatever makes you jump up in your chair, essentially makes you insecure about your own condition in some way or the other." According to him, similar results were shown in a research called 'Is Homophobia Associated with Homosexual Arousal?', by Georgia University published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When reached for comment, the BJP's National IT head Arvind Gupta said, "I am not aware of such an ad being placed on this website. If this is indeed true we will take it up with the advertising agency responsible." BJP spokesperson and Lok Sabha candidate from New Delhi Meenakshi Lekhi too told dna, "This is the first I am hearing of such an advertisement," and added, "In the first instance it seems like a deliberate act of mischief in the poll season to embarrass our party."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Centre for Internet and Society, Executive Director Sunil Abraham felt the ad on grindr may have to do more with the lack of knowledge than anything else. "We find many ads by top Indian corporate brands on pirate websites. This happens because people are still not completely conversant with negotiating with advertising networks when it comes to websites."</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/dna-march-21-2014-yogesh-pawar-no-to-homosexuals-yes-to-their-vote'>https://cis-india.org/news/dna-march-21-2014-yogesh-pawar-no-to-homosexuals-yes-to-their-vote</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaSocial NetworkingInternet Governance2014-04-04T09:54:39ZNews ItemNew rules leave social media users vulnerable: Experts
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-krupa-joseph-june-10-2021-new-rules-leave-social-media-users-vulnerable
<b>They analyse the implications of the government vs Twitter controversy on individual privacy</b>
<p>The article by Krupa Joseph was <a class="external-link" href="https://www.deccanherald.com/metrolife/metrolife-your-bond-with-bengaluru/new-rules-leave-social-media-users-vulnerable-experts-993460.html">published in the Deccan Herald</a> on 10 June 2021. Torsha Sarkar has been quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government had notified the changes on February 25, and allowed social media companies three months to comply. Twitter and WhatsApp had then separately approached the Delhi High Court against the new regulations, fearing they could compromise user privacy.</p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">On Monday, the court gave Twitter three weeks to file a response to the government’s charge that it had not appointed a grievance officer as claimed.</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Vague rules</strong></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">Karthik Srinivasan, communications consultant, who uses his blog Beast of Traal to comment on social media, says the new rules are “vague and open-ended”.</p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">“Coupled with the fact that we still do not have a data protection law, the rules could be severely misused both by government and private entities,” he says.</p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">Users are particularly vulnerable in a country where anything and everything offends a lot of people, he says.</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Law overreach</strong></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">Torsha Sarkar, researcher with the Centre for Internet and Society, says the rules introduce additional obligations for social media platforms and classify intermediaries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Intermediaries with over five million users would have obligations to introduce traceability, instal automated filtering, provide detailed grievance redressal mechanisms, and publish compliance <span> reports detailing action taken on takedown orders,” she says.</span></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">While some of these obligations are similar to those laid down internationally, some alterations are causing concern. The traceability requirement, for example, is highly contentious as it would erode user privacy.</p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">“It is also concerning that the user threshold, for a country like India, with such vast Internet usage, is set at a very low level. This means that even smaller social media platforms might becompelled to carry out economically crippling obligations,” she explains.</p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">The legislative overreach is seen in how the initial draft , which only covered entities like Twitter and Facebook, now seeks to cover digital news media and content curators like Netfl ixand Hulu, she says.</p>
<p class="Default">Stretching the scope of the legislation this way is undemocratic since it was not subject to any public consultation, she notes.</p>
<p class="Default"><b>Case in High Court</b></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">Mishi Choudhary, technology lawyer and founder of SFLC.in, a legal services organisation specialising in law, technology and policy, says the IT rules notified by the government are unconstitutional. “In the garb of addressing misinformation and regulating technology companies, the government has been exceeding the powers granted through subordinate legislation and using it for political purposes,” she says. It is on these grounds that the Free and Open Source Software community has challenged the new rules in the Kerala High Court. “Technology companies need regulation but not at the expense of user rights,” she says.</p>
<p class="Default"><b>Congress </b><span>‘</span><b>toolkit</b><span>’ </span><b>row</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A few weeks after social media platforms were asked to take down posts critical of thegovernment’s management of India’s Covid-19 crisis, Twitter once again found itself at thereceiving end. Last week, Twitter labelled a tweet by BJP leader Sambit Patra, accusing theCongress of working with a ‘toolkit, as ‘manipulated media’. Twitter says it gives the label totweets that include media (videos, audio, and images) that are “deceptively altered orfabricated”. The Delhi police then sent a notice to Twitter in connection and asked the micro-blogging site to explain the reasons for assigning the tag. The police also conducted raids onTwitter offices in India. Things escalated when Twitter said the government was intimidating it. The government hit back saying law-making was its privileges, and Twitter, being a social media platform, should not dictate legal policy framework.</p>
<p class="Default"><b>New rules</b></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify; ">Under the new IT rules, social media companies like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter will be responsible for identifying the originator of a flagged message within 36 hours. They also have to appoint a chief compliance officer, a nodal contact person and a resident grievance officer. Failing to comply with these rules would cause the platforms to lose their status as intermediaries, and make them liable for whatever is posted on their platforms.</p>
<p class="Default"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><br /></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-krupa-joseph-june-10-2021-new-rules-leave-social-media-users-vulnerable'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-krupa-joseph-june-10-2021-new-rules-leave-social-media-users-vulnerable</a>
</p>
No publisherKrupa JosephFreedom of Speech and ExpressionSocial MediaInternet Governance2021-06-14T11:27:53ZNews ItemNetworks: What You Don’t See is What You (for)Get
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dml-central-april-17-2014-nishant-shah-networks-what-you-dont-see-is-what-you-for-get
<b>When I start thinking about DML (digital media and learning) and other such “networks” that I am plugged into, I often get a little confused about what to call them.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The blog entry was originally <a class="external-link" href="http://dmlcentral.net/blog/nishant-shah/networks-what-you-don%E2%80%99t-see-what-you-forget">published in DML Central</a> on April 17, 2014 and mirrored in <a class="external-link" href="http://hybridpublishing.org/2014/05/what-you-dont-see-is-what-you-forget/">Hybrid Publishing Lab</a> on May 13, 2014.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Are we an ensemble of actors? A cluster of friends? A conference of scholars? A committee of decision makers? An array of perspectives? A group of associates? A play-list of voices? I do not pose these questions rhetorically, though I do enjoy rhetoric. I want to look at this inability to name collectives and the confusions and ambiguity it produces as central to our conversations around digital thinking. In particular, I want to look at the notion of the network. Because, I am sure, that if we were to go for the most neutralised digital term to characterise this collection that we all weave in and out of, it would have to be the network. We are a network.<a href="#fn1" name="fr1">[1] </a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But, what does it mean to say that we are a network? The network is a very strange thing. Especially within the realms of the Internet, which, in itself, purports to be a giant network, the network is self-explanatory, self-referential and completely denuded of meaning. A network is benign, and like the digital, that foregrounds the network aesthetic, the network is inscrutable. You cannot really touch a network or name it. You cannot shape it or define it. You can produce momentary snapshots of it, but you can never contain it or limit it. The network cannot be held or materially felt.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And yet, the network touches us. We live within networked societies. We engage in networking – network as a verb. We are a network – network as a noun. We belong to networks – network as a collective. In all these poetic mechanisms of network, there is perhaps the core of what we want to talk about today – the tension between the local and the global and the way in which we will understand the Internet and then the frameworks of governance and policy that surround it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Let me begin with a genuine question. What predates the network? Because the network is a very new word. The first etymological trace of the network is in 1887, where it was used as a verb, within broadcast and communications models, to talk about an outreach. As in ‘to cover with a network.’ The idea of a network as a noun is older where in the 1550s, the idea of ‘net-like arrangements of threads, wires, etc.’ was first identified as a network. In the second half of the industrial 19th Century, the term network was used for understanding an extended, complex, interlocking system. The idea of network as a set of connected people emerged in the latter half of the 20thCentury. I am pointing at these references to remind us that the ubiquitous presence of the network, as a practice, as a collective, and as a metaphor that seeks to explain the rest of the world around us, is a relatively new phenomenon. And we need to be aware of the fact, that the network, especially as it is understood in computing and digital technologies, is a particular model through which objects, individuals and the transactions between them are imagined.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For anybody who looks at the network itself – especially the digital network that we have accepted as the basis on which everything from social relationships on Facebook to global financial arcs are defined – we know that the network is in a state of crisis.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Networks of crises: The Bangalore North East Exodus</h3>
<p>Let me illustrate the multiple ways in which the relationship between networks and crisis has been imagined through a particular story. In August 2012, I woke up one morning to realise that I was living in a city of crisis. Bangalore, which is one of my homes, where the largest preoccupations to date have been about bad roads, stray dogs, and occasionally, the lack of a nightlife, was suddenly a space that people wanted to flee and occupy simultaneously.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Through the technology mediated gossip mill that produced rumours faster than the speed of a digital click, imagination of terror, danger, and material harm found currency. The city suddenly witnessed thousands of people running away from it, heading back to their imagined homelands. It was called the North East exodus, where, following an ethnic-religious clash between two traditionally hostile communities in Assam, there were rumours that the large North East Indian community in Bangalore was going to be attacked by certain Muslim factions at the end of Ramadan.<br />The media spectacle of the exodus around questions of religion, ethnicity, regionalism and belonging only emphasised the fact that there is a new way of connectedness that we live in – the network society that no longer can be controlled, contained or corrected by official authorities and their voices. Despite a barrage of messages from law enforcement and security authorities, on email, on large screens on the roads, and on our cell phones, there was a growing anxiety and a spiralling information explosion that was producing an imaginary situation of precariousness and bodily harm. For me, this event, was one of the first signalling how to imagine the network society in a crisis, especially when it came to Bangalore, which is supposed to represent the Silicon dreams of an India that is shining brightly. While there is much to be unpacked about the political motivations and the ecologies of fear that our migrant lives in global cities are enshrined in, I want to specifically focus on what the emergence of this network society means.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There is an imagination, especially in cities like Bangalore, of digital technologies as necessarily plugging in larger networks of global information consumption. The idea that technology plugs us into the transnational circuits is so huge that it only tunes us toward an idea of connectedness that is always outward looking, expanding the scope of nation, community and body.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, the ways in which information was circulating during this phenomenon reminds us that digital networks are also embedded in local practices of living and survival. Most of the time, these networks are so natural and such an integral part of our crucial mechanics of urban life that they appear as habits, without any presence or visibility. In times of crises – perceived or otherwise – these networks make themselves visible, to show that they are also inward looking. But in this production of hyper-visible spectacles, the network works incessantly to make itself invisible.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Which is why, in the case of the North East exodus, the steps leading to the resolution of the crisis, constructed and fuelled by networks is interesting. As government and civil society efforts to control the rumours and panic reached an all-time high and people continued to flee the city, the government eventually went in to regulate the technology itself. There were expert panel discussions about whether the digital technologies are to be blamed for this rumour mill. There was a ban on mass-messaging and there was a cap on the number of messages which could be sent on a day by each mobile phone subscriber. The Information and Broadcast Ministry along with the Information Technologies cell, started monitoring and punishing people for false and inflammatory information.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Network as Crisis: The unexpected visibility of a network</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What, then, was the nature of the crisis in this situation? It is a question worth exploring. We would imagine that this crisis was a crisis about the nationwide building of mega-cities filled with immigrant bodies that are not allowed their differences because they all have to be cosmopolitan and mobile bodies. The crisis could have been read as one of neo-liberal flatness in imagining the nation and its fragments, that hides the inherent and historical sites of conflict under the seductive rhetoric of economic development. And yet, when we look at the operationalization of the resolutions, it looked as if the crisis was the appearance and the visibility of the hitherto hidden local networks of information and communication.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In her analysis of networks, Brown University’s Wendy Chun posits that this is why networks are an opaque metaphor. If the function of metaphor is to explain, through familiarity, objects which are new to us, the network as an explanatory paradigm presents a new conundrum. While the network presumes and exteriority that it seeks to present, while the network allows for a subjective interiority of the actor and its decisions, while the network grants visibility and form to the everyday logic of organisation, what the network actually seeks to explain is itself. Or, in less evocative terms, the network is not only the framework through which we analyse, but it is also the object of analyses. Once the network has been deployed as a paradigm through which to understand a crisis, once the network has made itself visible, all our efforts are driven at explaining and strengthening, and almost like digital mothers, comfort the network back into its peaceful existence as infrastructure. We develop better tools to regulate the network. We define new parameters to mine the data more effectively. We develop policies to govern and govern through the network with greater transparency and ease.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Thus, in the case of the North East exodus, instead of addressing the larger issues of conservative parochialism, an increasing backlash by right-wing governments and a growing hostility that emerges from these cities that nobody possesses and nobody belongs to, the efforts were directed at blaming technology as the site where the problem is located and the network as the object that needs to be controlled. What emerged was a series of corrective mechanisms and a set of redundant regulations that controlled the number of text messages that people were able to send per day or policing the Internet for spreading rumours. The entire focus was on information management, as if the reason for the mass exodus of people from the NE Indian states and the sense of fragility that the city had been immersed in, was all due to the pervasive and ubiquitous information gadgets and their ability to proliferate in p2p (peer-to-peer) environments outside of the government’s control. This lack of exteriority to the network is something that very few critical voices have pointed out.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Duncan Watts, the father of network computing, working through the logic of nodes, traffic and edges, has suggested there is a great problem in the ways in which we understand the process of network making. I am paraphrasing his complex mathematical text that explains the production of physical networks – what he calls the small worlds – and pointing out his strong critique about how the social scientists engage with networks. In the social sciences’ imagination of networks, there is a messy exteriority – fuzzy, complex and often not reducible to patterns or basic principles. The network is a distilling of the messy exteriority, a representation of the complex interplay between different objects and actors, and a visual mapping of things as they are. Which is to say, we imagine there is a material reality and the network is a tool by which this reality, or at least parts of this reality, are mapped and represented to us in patterns which can help us understand the true nature of this reality.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Drawing from practices of network modelling and building, Watts proved, that we have the equation wrong. The network is not a representation of reality but the ontology of reality. The network is not about trying to make sense of an exteriority. Instead, the network is an abstract and ideological map that constructs the reality in a particular way. In other words, the network precedes the real, and because of its ability to produce objective, empiricist and reductive principles (constantly filtering out that which is not important to the logic or the logistics of the network design), it then gives us a reality that is produced through the network principles. To make it clear, the network representation is not the derivative of the real but the blue-print of the real. And the real as we access it, through these networked tools, is not the raw and messy real but one that is constructed and shaped by the network in those ways. The network, then, needs to be understood, examined and critiqued, not as something that represents the natural, but something that shapes our understanding of the natural itself.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the case of the Bangalore North East Exodus, the network and its visibility created a problem for us – and the problem was, that the network, which is supposed to be infrastructure, and hence, by nature invisible, had suddenly become visible. We needed to make sure that it was shamed, blamed, named and tamed so that we can go back to our everyday practices of regulation, governance and policy.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">The Intersectional Network</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What I want to emphasise, then, is that this binary of local versus the global, or local working in tandem with global, or the quaintly hybridised glocal are not very generative in thinking of policy and politics around the Internet. What we need is to recognise what gets hidden in this debate. What becomes visible when it is not supposed to? What remains invisible beyond all our efforts? And how do we develop a framework that actually moves beyond these binary modes of thinking, where the resolution is either to collapse them or to pretend that they do not exist in the first place? Working with frameworks like the network makes us aware of the ways in which these ideas of the global and the local are constructed and continue to remain the focus of our conversations, making invisible the real questions at hand.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Hence, we need to think of networks, not as spaces of intersection, but in need of intersections. The networks, because of their predatory, expanding nature, and the constant interaction with the edges, often appear as dynamic and inclusive. We need to now think of the networks as in need of intersections – or of intersectional networks. Developing intersections, of temporality, of geography and of contexts are great. But, we need to move one step beyond – and look at the couplings of aspiration, inspiration, autonomy, control, desire, belonging and precariousness that often mark the new digital subjects. And our policies, politics and regulations will have to be tailored to not only stop the person abandoning her life and running to a place of safety, not only stop the rumours within the Information and communication networks, not only create stop-gap measures of curbing the flows of gossip, but to actually account for the human conditions of life and living.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">[<a href="#fr1" name="fn1">1</a>]. This post has grown from conversations across three different locations. The first draft of this talk was presented at the Habits of Living Conference, organised by the Centre for Internet & Society and Brown University, in Bangalore. A version of this talk found great inputs from the University of California Humanities Research Institute in Irvine, where I found great ways of sharpening the focus. The responses at the Milton Wolf Seminar at the America Austria Foundation, Austria, to this story, helped in making it more concrete to the challenges that the “network” throws to our digital modes of thinking. I am very glad to be able to put the talk into writing this time, and look forward to more responses.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dml-central-april-17-2014-nishant-shah-networks-what-you-dont-see-is-what-you-for-get'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dml-central-april-17-2014-nishant-shah-networks-what-you-dont-see-is-what-you-for-get</a>
</p>
No publishernishantSocial MediaInternet Governance2014-05-28T09:30:45ZBlog EntryNet Neutrality Advocates Rejoice As TRAI Bans Differential Pricing
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/odisha-tv-february-9-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-net-neutrality-advocates-rejoice-as-trai-bans-differential-pricing
<b>India would not see any more Free Basics advertisements on billboards with images of farmers and common people explaining how much they benefited from this Facebook project.</b>
<p>The article by Subhashish Panigrahi was <a class="external-link" href="http://odishatv.in/opinion/net-neutrality-advocates-rejoice-as-trai-bans-differential-pricing-125476/">published by Odisha TV </a>on February 9, 2016.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Because the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has taken a historical step by banning differential pricing without discriminating services. In their notes TRAI has explained, “In India, given that a majority of the population are yet to be connected to the internet, allowing service providers to define the nature of access would be equivalent of letting TSPs shape the users’ internet experience.” Not just that, violation of this ban would cost Rs. 50,000 every day.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook planned to launch Free Basics in India by making a few websites – mostly partners with Facebook—available for free. The company not just advertised aggressively on bill boards and commercials across the nation, it also embedded a campaign inside Facebook asking users to vote in support of Free Basics. TRAI criticized Facebook’s attempt to manipulate public opinion. Facebook was also heavily challenged by many policy and internet advocates including non-profits like Free Software Movement of India and Savetheinternet.in campaign. The two collectives strongly discouraged Free Basics by moulding public opinion against it with Savetheinternet.in alone used to send over 2.4 million emails to TRAI to disallow Free Basics. Furthermore, 500 Indian start-ups, including major names like Cleartrip, Zomato, Practo, Paytm and Cleartax, also wrote to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting continued support for Net Neutrality – a concept that advocates equal treatment of websites – on Republic Day. Stand-up comedians like Abish Mathew and groups like All India Bakchod and East India Comedy created humorous but informative videos explaining the regulatory debate and supporting net neutrality. Both went viral.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Technology critic and Quartz writer Alice Truong reacted to Free Basics saying; “Zuckerberg almost portrays net neutrality as a first-world problem that doesn’t apply to India because having some service is better than no service.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The decision of the Indian government has been largely welcomed in the country and outside. In support of the move, Web We Want programme manager at the World Wide Web Foundation Renata Avila has said; “As the country with the second largest number of Internet users worldwide, this decision will resonate around the world. It follows a precedent set by Chile, the United States, and others which have adopted similar net neutrality safeguards. The message is clear: We can’t create a two-tier Internet – one for the haves, and one for the have-nots. We must connect everyone to the full potential of the open Web.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are mixed responses on the social media, both in support and in opposition to the TRAI decision. Josh Levy, Advocacy Director at Accessnow, has appreciated saying, “India is now the global leader on #NetNeutrality. New rules are stronger than those in EU and US.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Had differential pricing been allowed, it would have affected start-ups and content-based smaller companies adversely as they could never have managed to pay the high price to a partner service provider to make their service available for free. On the other hand, tech-giants like Facebook could have easily managed to capture the entire market. Since the inception, the Facebook-run non-profit Internet.org has run into a lot of controversies because of the hidden motive behind the claimed support for social cause.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/odisha-tv-february-9-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-net-neutrality-advocates-rejoice-as-trai-bans-differential-pricing'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/odisha-tv-february-9-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-net-neutrality-advocates-rejoice-as-trai-bans-differential-pricing</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaSocial MediaFree BasicsNet NeutralityFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet Governance2016-02-23T02:10:42ZBlog EntryNet advocacy body probing linkages between telcos and Facebook’s auto-play video option
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/financial-express-prabhu-mallikarjunan-october-28-2015-net-advocacy-body-probing-linkages-between-telcos-and-facebooks-auto-play-video-option
<b>Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India’s leading internet advocacy body, which has often been critical of Facebook’s Internet.org — now called Free Basics — initiative, has said that it is looking into the possibility of Facebook helping telecom companies through its auto-play video option.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Prabhu Mallikarjunan was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.financialexpress.com/article/industry/companies/net-advocacy-body-probing-linkages-between-telcos-and-facebooks-auto-play-video-option/157658/">published in the Financial Express</a> on October 28, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In an interaction with FE on Tuesday, Sunil Abraham, executive director of The Centre for Internet and Society, said CIS will inititiate research on the notion that the new video option will result in 50% increase in data billing for the telecom companies. It will also look into whether this, in turn, will encourage the telecom companies to be on the Internet.org platform.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This initiative from CIS comes on the eve of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s visit to India on Wednesday, where he will address a gathering at IIT, Delhi. Facebook has been trying to hard sell the Free Basics concept at a time when the Indian government is looking to work closely with the internet major to push the <a href="http://www.financialexpress.com/tag/digital-india/">Digital India</a> initiative. “The company (Facebook) has done some good things, and also done some not so good things. The good thing is that, they have changed the name of the application and called it Free Basics. Also, they have re-enabled https and have published “the technical requirements document, through which they have eliminated the exclusivity arm both on the telco end and for OTT (Over the top) players,” Abraham said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“How does FB gain from making the videos autoplay. It doesn’t gain. Why should the telcos be made happy? We are looking into this theory of whether auto-play video option will result in 50% increase in data billing for the telecom companies,” Abraham said.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/financial-express-prabhu-mallikarjunan-october-28-2015-net-advocacy-body-probing-linkages-between-telcos-and-facebooks-auto-play-video-option'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/financial-express-prabhu-mallikarjunan-october-28-2015-net-advocacy-body-probing-linkages-between-telcos-and-facebooks-auto-play-video-option</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2015-10-29T00:53:55ZNews ItemNasscom against differential pricing for data services
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-moulishree-srivastava-january-5-2016-nasscom-against-differential-pricing-for-data-services
<b>The National Association of Software and Services Companies says it should be the regulator that decides on such content, not firms.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Moulishree Srivastava was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/j1P4yZ3brS4Ttk6kUqy1QJ/Nasscom-against-differential-pricing-for-data-services.html">published in Livemint </a>on January 5, 2016. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India’s top software lobby on Monday said if select web content needs to be provided cheaper for some Indians, it must be the regulator that decides on such content, not companies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In its response to a consultation paper by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on differential pricing for data usage, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) objected to plans such as Free Basics and Airtel Zero where companies choose content to be provided at different speeds and prices, but backed powers for the regulator to allow such a model if the regulator deems they are in “public interest”, while adhering to principles of net neutrality.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“We strongly oppose any model where telecom service providers (TSPs) or their partners have a say or discretion in choosing content that is made available at favourable rates, speed... any differential pricing by TSP either directly such as Airtel Zero or indirectly as in the case of Free Basics through a platform provider which limits access to the internet services or websites (selected by the TSP or by the partners) violate the idea of net neutrality,” said R. Chandrashekhar, president, Nasscom.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“But when we recognize the reality of India as a country which has low internet penetration and even lower broadband penetration, apart from low levels of digital literacy and limited local language content... there may be a need to provide certain services in public interest at differential or lower prices which the regulator feels are necessary,” he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Therefore, it is important that the regulator should have the power to allow differential pricing for certain types or classes of services that are deemed to be in public interest and based on mandatory prior approvals,” he said. “Any such programmes should abide by the principles of net neutrality and not constrain innovation in any way and not constrain innovation in any way.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Differential pricing for data usage means offering services at different price points to different users. However, analysts say it could lead to an anti-competitive environment, hurting small companies and start-ups, while giving the TSPs and their partner platforms near-monopolistic access to the vast amount of user data that has potential commercial value in a country such as India where privacy laws are not strong.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Differential pricing is a significant aspect of the net neutrality debate that erupted in India in 2015, when Trai released a consultation paper in April. Soon, telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd launched Zero, a marketing platform that allows customers to access mobile applications for free but charges the application providers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Facebook’s Free Basics service (the new name for Internet.org) aims to offer people without the Internet free access to a handful of websites and a range of services through mobile phones, which net neutrality activists say will violate the core principle that everyone should have unrestricted access to Internet and it should not be regulated by a company.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Following the outrage, Trai put Free Basics on hold, asking Reliance Communications Ltd to furnish the detailed terms and conditions of its Free Basics service. The next step will be announced later this month.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In an op-ed in the <i>Times of India</i> last week, Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys Ltd. and former chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India, publicly criticized Facebook’s Free Basics, calling it a walled garden.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The walled garden of Free Basics goes against the spirit of openness on the internet, and in the guise of being pro-poor, balkanises it. Only Free Basics-approved websites will be accessible for free,” he said in the article which he co-authored with Viral Shah who led the design of government’s subsidy platforms using Aadhaar. “In theory, anyone meeting the technical guidelines today can participate. However, services that may potentially compete with telco offerings may not join Free Basics. Since Facebook does not currently subsidise free usage, telcos will have to foot the bill by raising prices.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He said schemes such as direct benefit transfer for Internet data packs would be better compared to programmes such as Free Basics.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nasscom, in its response, recommended “mandatory prior approval of such services by the regulator and sharing of periodic information on tariff plans seek to lower the price as well as zero rating services,” adding that these programmes should abide by the principle of net neutrality, meaning it should not limit consumers access to pre-defined set of services or websites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Any such differential pricing programs should have explicit approval of the regulator—and should be deemed to be in the public interest and the onus of proving it to be in the public interest in the first instance would be on service provider and before Trai arrives at a final decision a public consultation is also advised because of the dangers involved,” Nasscom said. “Even after the approval, suitable oversight mechanism should be maintained by the regulator in all such case.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), said Nasscom’s approach to make differential pricing plans and options as an exception rather than the rule was quite reasonable. “It says that if differential pricing services adhere to the guidelines of being non-discriminatory, non-anti-competitive, non-predatory, non-ambiguous and transparent, they can be allowed under the supervision of the regulator, which is similar to the position adopted by CIS,” he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Though some of their positions are ambiguous—for instance what they mean by non-discriminatory, and whether they are okay with differential pricing between classes of applications, are unclear—and some of their recommendations increase regulatory complexity, such as their proposal for independent not-for-profit entities with independent boards to own and manage such differential pricing programs, by and large it is a useful submission,” Prakash added.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-moulishree-srivastava-january-5-2016-nasscom-against-differential-pricing-for-data-services'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-moulishree-srivastava-january-5-2016-nasscom-against-differential-pricing-for-data-services</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaPrivacyFree BasicsInternet GovernanceFreedom of Speech and Expression2016-01-06T15:12:17ZNews Item