Sibal climbs down,’no question of censoring Internet’

Asked whether there was any plan to formulate a mechanism to regulate Internet content,Sachin Pilot,Minister of State for Communication and IT,said,”There is no question of censorship of Internet.

“Whatever law has to me made are already in place. The Government of India is committed to abiding by what is there according to the Constitution of India which is freedom of speech and expression. We protect that with a lot of energy,” he said.

Sibal said this discussion and this dialogue is about how the social media can empower the government,because under the normal processes of the government,there is always a limited dialogue with representatives of society as the means are limited.

In September this year,in an endeavour to increase the trust of citizens in the online environment and to enable the various government agencies to choose appropriate authentication mechanism,the Department of Information Technology had conceptualised the e-Pramaan framework for authentication of public services.

Source in the know also said the Telecom Ministry is mulling forming an inter-ministerial group to work out a mechanism to monitor and avoid uploading of any defamatory material on Internet.

Sibal further said the reach of the social media is enormous,but those who use the social media are limited,so it should not be that the government represents the point of view of a certain section of society.

He asked the social network representatives,”How does the social media use its own platform to ensure that the voice of the marginalised is heard by government,which otherwise sometimes is not heard?”

“So,in other words,we want a constructive dialogue that helps them to empower us when we move forward in our decision-making,” he added.

Pilot said the meeting also discussed as to how to use social media platform to help the government for the disaster management.

The meeting assumes significance in view of India,for the first time,is hosting The World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR),a unique global forum initiated by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) formed under the auspices of UNESCO,in April next year.

Telecom Minister Sibal is Chairperson of this Forum.

Last week,Sibal had met with officials from Google,Microsoft,Facebook and Yahoo and had complained about offensive material on their websites.

However,Sibal maintained that the government does not want to interfere with the press,but if the social networking sites are not willing to cooperate with the government on stopping incendiary material,appropriate steps will be taken.