India’s IT and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has stirred the hornet’s nest by announcing that social media sites must screen content. There is horror and disbelief among netizens, many of whom consider the announcement as nothing short of censorship.
These netizens forget that social media must remain social if it is to be of use and value. You cannot have a law and order problem in Udaipur for postings made on Facebook that disparaged a Muslim shrine.
How would these netizens feel if they were pilloried and abused in the name of freedom of speech? That is what is happening. Individual reputations are being savaged by a small minority of malcontents; religious sentiments are being trampled upon; and abusive and inflammatory content is being allowed to be posted by social media sites.
All these postings are being made by individuals who use pseudonyms. None of them has the courage to identify himself by name or place. But they have no hesitation in attacking a fellow individual on grounds of caste, language, religion or political affiliation.
It is this content that Kapil Sibal has asked social media sites to remove. Is anything wrong in it?
The social media sites too realise that they need to filter content that is abusive and derogatory. That is why they have web filters that block postings that use slur or abusive words. They also appeal to browsers to report abuse by clicking on the abuse button.
However, none of these steps have stopped web users from posting content that is mischievous and in bad taste.
The option is to let these web users continue to disfigure and deface social media sites. Or to push the social media sites to clean their property.
This is what India wants. Let not a few web users destroy such a great utility as a social media site. We need social media sites to connect, post and share content.
Let’s welcome steps taken to improve our web experience.
