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Virtual reality

  • December 9, 2011

The controversy over the government’s alleged desire to censor Facebook, Twitter and other leading lights of the social media has obscured some genuine and urgent questions we need to address about free speech in our society.

The problem arose when the New York Times reported on Monday that our Kapil Sibal, had called in senior social media executives from Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo and allegedly asked them to “prescreen user content from India and to remove disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content before it goes online”.

Such a request inevitably sparked off a firestorm of Internet protest against the minister, without waiting to hear his side of the story. Facebook pages sprang up to denounce him; web-boards overflowed with nasty comments against the minister, the ruling party and the government, suggesting they were trying to protect a political leader; and the hashtag “#IdiotKapilSibal” started “trending” on Twitter. All a bit over the top.

As a frequent recipient of disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content myself, I’m no great fan of unpleasantness on any media, social or otherwise, but I’m strongly opposed to censorship. Freedom of speech is fundamental to any democracy, and many of the most valuable developments in India would not have been possible without it.

Freedom of speech is the mortar that binds the bricks of our democracy together, and it’s also the open window embedded in those bricks. Free speech keeps our government accountable, and helps political leaders know what people are thinking. Censorship is a disservice to both rulers and ruled.

But — and free speech advocates hate that “but”! — every society recognises some sensible restraints on how free speech is exercised. Those restraints almost always relate to the collectivity; they arise when the freedom of the individual to say what he wants causes more harm to more people in society than restricting his freedom would.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in the US, put it memorably when he said that freedom of speech does not extend to the right to shout “fire!” in a crowded theatre. (After all, that could cause a stampede, in which people could get trampled upon, injured and even killed, and the theatre’s property destroyed — all consequences that outweigh the individual’s right to say what he likes.)

Since societies vary in their cultural&political traditions, the boundaries vary from place to place. Free speech absolutists tend to say that freedom is a universal right that must not be abridged. But in practice such abridgement often takes place, if not by law then by convention. No American editor would allow the “n” word to be used to describe black Americans, not because it’s against the law, but because it would cause great offence.

Just as the commonplace practice of women taking off their bikini tops at St Tropez, Copacabana or Bondi Beach could not be replicated on the beaches of Goa, Dubai or Karachi without risking assault or arrest, so also things might be said in the former set of places that would not pass muster in the latter. It’s no use pretending such differences don’t exist. They do, and they’re the reason why free speech in, say, Sweden isn’t the same as free speech in Singapore.

The problem is particularly acute on social media, because it's a public forum for the expression of private thoughts. The fact is that social media’s biggest asset is also its biggest problem. Its strength is that social media enables ordinary people to share vivid, real-time unfiltered images and text reports before any other source, including governments or traditional media, can do so.

Even more, any individual with the basic literacy needed to operate a keyboard can express his or her opinion, create information, whether video or text, and communicate it immediately, without the delays necessarily wrought by editorial controls, cross-checking or even the synthesising that occurs in a “mainstream” newsroom.

That gives social media an advantage over regular media as a disseminator of public opinion. If you wanted to express your views in, say, this newspaper, you would have to write something well enough to pass editorial muster; your facts and opinions would be checked, vetted and challenged; your prose might be cut for space reasons (or mere editorial whim); and you might have to wait days, if not weeks, to see your words in print.

None of that applies to social media. You can write all you want, as you want, in the words you want, on a blog or a Facebook page, put it up with a Twitter link, click a mouse and instantly watch it all go viral. It’s a 21st century freedom that no democratic political leader would wish to confront.

And yet this very freedom is its own biggest threat. It means anyone can say literally anything and, inevitably, many do. Lies, distortions and calumny go into cyberspace unchallenged; hatred, pornography and slander are routinely aired. There is no fact-checking, no institutional reputation for reliability to defend. The anonymity permitted by social media encourages even more irresponsibility: people hidden behind pseudonyms feel free to hurl abuses they would never dare to utter to the recipients’ faces. The borderline between legitimate creative expression and “disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content” becomes more unclear.

Mr Sibal’s main concern was not with politics, but with scurrilous material about certain religions that could have incited retaliatory violence. People say or depict things on social media that might be bad enough in their living rooms, but are positively dangerous in a public space. The challenge of regulating social media is that the person writing or drawing such things does so in the privacy of his home but releases them into the global commons. My own yardstick is very clear: I reject censorship. Art, literature and political opinion are to me sacrosanct. But publishing inflammatory material to incite communal feelings is akin to dropping a lighted match at a petrol pump. No society can afford to tolerate it, and no responsible government of India would allow it.

That position has got me almost as much hate mail on the Internet as poor Mr Sibal. But I’d rather stub out that match than close down the petrol pump.

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Vivek 09/12/2011 - 10:22pm

"Mr Sibal’s main concern was not with politics, but with scurrilous material about certain religions that could have incited retaliatory violence."

Then why did the report indicate that he showed sites related to Sonia Gandhi and Congress for removal? Will Sibal come out and say that he will not ask for removal of Sonia Gandhi and Congress material on the web? If he won't then why are you at pains to explain his position? The argument that it is being done only for inflammatory religious material is a diversion made only when the issue became inflammatory. And, guess what the govt's attempt at censoring material is also inflammatory so please censor Sibal from the govt. i.e; he should resign. It is not sufficient for him to backtrack. Enough in enough!

jagdishbhasin@y... 09/12/2011 - 06:05pm

i agree with the contents of column & i believe some cross checking must be on for unacceptable remarks but i want to know about kapilsibalji is thier protest only for religious inflammatory content i like to say there is much more unacceptable contents on internet why kapilji not acted before in the interest of society

Kavan LImbasiya 09/12/2011 - 05:00pm

1. 'shouting-fire-in-theater' is different from what happens in fb. you are using that term in wrong context than originally used in US SC judgment circa 1919. the context then was 'clear and present' danger. FB materials qualify for none of the two criterion. At any rate your analogy with internet media doesn't hold, public in theater is captive it has no other option than getting into a stampede.

2.By what stretch of imagination would you argue that an obscene pic on FB can create riot on its own, isnt it that communal sensitivity in india is such that people will indulge in riots with or without FB. afterall the biggest riots during partition were not caused by FB. If a petrol pump gets exploded by a spark, spark is not to be blamed but its the combustibility of liquid that is to be blamed. The work should be towards reducing the combustibility, preventing from sparks can best be a stopgap arrangement. But what such pro-censorship attitudes does is to defeat its own purpose, it effectively increase that combustibility by providing a perpetual shield around it.

3. Its a double speak, the ground on which sibal argued was religious sensitivity but actually his objections were political abuses hurled at Sonia gandhi and MMS(As betrayed in NYT article).

Dhruv 09/12/2011 - 04:00pm

Hello Mr Tharoor

I agree there should be responsibility from user not to indulge in inflamatory or defamatory content, but why not have post screening strict laws rather than pre screening.

In real life there are many incidents of crime on knife edge, do we do pre screening there saying knifes should be banned in india. There are many rape cases, murders and looting.. do we curb down freedom by laying down curfew in india on name of curbing violence?

Just the way google said that Sibal tried to take down some sites which had anti government sentiments what gaurantee does it provide that government will use pre screening only for inflamatory or defamatory content? As we all know that many politician have indulge in corruption, riots, violence & various other crimes, how can we give up our freedom when they can easily misuse it for their own benifit.

To cite an example apart from sibal trying to take down anti government sentiments...
In October, Delhi University dropped scholar AK Ramanujan's essay, 300 Ramayanas, from the BA syllabus, bowing to pressure from right-wing organizations. One of the objections: the essay referred to certain interpretations of the epic that were seen as going against Hindu beliefs. But equally vociferous was the protest against the idea of plural Ramayanas--that are many versions of the sacred story.

With prescreening man in power can easily drop views of people which are not in their parties interest.

The thing is you are telling us to give away our freedom on sake of inflamatory stuff posted by some anoynimous and give it to hugely powerful people who have known to misuse power. The repercussions of pre screening can hugely outlaid by the benifits which it can give. Do you think so without freedom in expressing on internet the anna hazare movement was possible? And timing of sibal gave me a thought WHY NOW? Has it to do with congress going all time low due to various scams and awarness in general public?

Congress have known history of emergency where they tried to shut down anti government sentiments. How can sibal or any party make sure that this will not happen? Even if they assure us is it worth taking risk? All dictatorship starts with checking on anti government sentiments and what sibal tried to do was same even if his intentions were not same.

I am great admirer of you and hence i would like to get an honest answer from you, IS IT WORTH TAKING RISK? SHOULD WE TRUST POLITICIAN?

r.subramanian 09/12/2011 - 03:39pm

I agree with the writer only with a small rider.I quote Mr.Singhvi of the congress who told during a TV interview that freedom of speech should not touch others' nose.Fine.Tharoor should remember that while Kapil Sibal quoted a specific incident where religious feelings were hurt through internet, his party stood a silent spectator when chappals and stones were thrown at Salem Tamilnadu over Lord Rama's portrait with whom his party as well as BJP aligned for survival of Government.It continues even now.There are thousands of hate speeches by non saffron parivar including violence on which the IT Minister and his young deputy have no control .So why sermons to others.Practicising is better than preaching and too to selective audience.Will he sermon to those champions who call others "infidels" and who advocated "religious harvests".

A kafir 09/12/2011 - 01:29pm

Hmm freedom of speech. This is applicable only whenhindu sentiments are trampled or quashed ,but inapplicable when moslem sentiments are being hurt even slightly. You have freedom of speech when saraswathi is painted in nude, but not when the propet is caricatured.

Chaitanya 09/12/2011 - 12:42pm

I think that Mr. Tharoor does not understand that most of the indignation about what Mr. Kapil Sibal attempted to do is not just because they wanted "screening" of internet content but the lack of transparency in the way the Hon Minister conducted himself. Instead of opening up this issue to public debate, there was an attempt to bring up a regulation that affects millions through the back door. The only reason for Mr. Sibal to do something that outrageous would have to be because he has something to hide.

There is tons of hateful paper paraphernalia available. So would the government now require "screening" of all published material in the country?!

Mr. Tharoor, you are a public figure and a "Twitter Titan". With hundreds of followers that you have (including myself) you are bound to get a disproportionate amount of hate mail - as Nilanjana Roy explains beautifully in her column. You cannot confuse your personal frustrations with an issue that affects the country!

Dhirendra 09/12/2011 - 12:04pm

I agree that - No one has the right to shout FIRE in a crowded cinema hall. But people have this humane responsibility to shout FIRE when there is actually fire.

People are generally critical about intention of people like you and Mr Sibal's intention, based on their past experience of deceit and sleight of hand from crooked politicians. Crooked politician, while claiming to be restricting the right to shout fire in ordinary circumstances, would also take the right to shout FIRE in case of real fire too.

As happened in case of last Lokpal bill presented by government. Govt kept saying that they are presenting a very strong Lokpal, but in reality it was found to be very weak from the perspective of protecting people's interest, BUT at the same time it tried to take away certain rights of people/NGO etc. So people are generally apprehensive about intention of people like you and Mr Sibal.

Here I rest my case.

Thanks and do something really pro-people and then come for next round of preaching.

Pranav Prakash 09/12/2011 - 11:39am

Sir, I just have a simple question for you. Please correct me if i'm wrong, but when was the last time that a riot in our country was fueled or communal harmony disturbed by your so called "inflammatory, disparaging and defamatory" content posted online and not by the provocative speeches of certain politicians??? Why don't you have a body pre-screening the speeches of politicians??
Sure there are laws against provocative speeches made by politicians but again there are laws in the cyber world too... Why the need of pre-screening???

jagdishbhasin 09/12/2011 - 11:22am

i agree with the contents of your VIRTUALREALITY but i disagree with the contents that only religious comments is behind the efforts of kapilsibalji there are so many scurrilous material on internet which is never objected by any responsible govt.

Kumar 09/12/2011 - 11:16am

Another plus for social media over traditional media is the trustworthiness. In traditional media - news channels, or newspapers, etc, its a totally unknown person's article you are reading - some of the controversial stuff are really hard to believe - you just reject them as gibberish and forget. But in social media, even if you are opposed to an idea, you don't reject it totally because its by someone you know well - you weigh it and derive a conclusion.
I don't think religious inflammatory material on social media is a cause for worry, because I believe a large portion of the users are mature enough to reject such material. They should rather spend the amount and effort on giving better education in rural places!

Dinipc 09/12/2011 - 10:26am

Mr. Sermonizer however does not think that "sensible restraint" must be practiced when Hindus Gods and Goddesses are shown masturbating or copulating with the animals they ride. Instead, Mr Dhimmi or shall we call him "Gandhi's Hindu coward" wants all the "social and sensible restraint" to be applicable when it is his Congress Goddess in question or the religion of his favourite rioters!

Bhagwad Park 09/12/2011 - 10:15am

Another problem I have with this line of thinking (other than the obvious one I've given above) is people like Sibal making statements like "we have to protect OUR PEOPLE from etc etc."

It's obvious that Sibal thinks of himself as Moses. We are not "your people". You're not our mothers, fathers and even if you were, we're adults who can think for ourselves thank you very much. We're perfectly capable of deciding for ourselves what offends us and what does not.

Most social media messages already have a "flag for offensive content" clicker next to it. Users will click that if they find stuff offensive. What more do you want? We as adults get to decide whether something offends us or not. The government has no business trying to get into that game.

Look at Wikipedia. Run entirely by users - no government intervention. Editors are people like me. We're perfectly capable of running a great content website without the help of the government thank you very much.

Anyone who gets so upset by offending images that they have to go on a rampage has a low EQ and shouldn't be allowed on the streets. Unfortunately, politicians NEVER blame the rioters who are the ones actually breaking the law. Instead they swarm on whatever random issue the rioters chose to protest against.

Which is nothing but the rule of muscles. The rule of the mob. But wait...I thought the state has a monopoly on violence. The state is supposed to have the biggest muscles. So why the hell doesn't it use them to protect freedom of expression by booking the rioters instead of the poor artist (or whoever) instead.

www.bhagwad.com/blog/

Bhagwad Park 09/12/2011 - 09:53am

But you're forgetting one important fact. People CHOOSE to visit a particular site. Web pages, Facebook pages etc are private property. As a blog owner, I even pay for my own domain. As a visitor, you are a guest on my website. I didn't force you to come to my site. You can leave whenever you want and never visit again.

Shouting "Fire" in a theater is illegal because those inside have no choice but to hear the cry of "Fire". But no one forces you to type in a URL of a page or click a link. People who have seen offensive content on the Internet know what they're more or less going to be exposed to.

If you see a Facebook page saying "I hate Hindus!", you have an excellent idea that you might be offended as a HIndu if you read what's inside. So tell me - if you STILL choose to go to that page and read the posts, who do you have to blame? - only yourself. If you deliberately touch a hot stove and get burned, do you blame yourself or the stove?

My website is my home to which guests are invited to come look around. I don't force people to enter. Neither the visitors nor the government has the right to tell me to rearrange my furniture or take down nude pictures on my walls - because my home belongs to ME.

My blog or Facebook page also belongs to ME. And visitors are my guests. I choose to moderate comments on my blog or not. Either way, it's my choice to decide what experience I wish to offer my visitors. No one is forced to read what I write or is forced to stay. So no one has the right to outlaw even purely abusive and hate filled speech on a private website.

It's high time that hate speech on the Internet is legalized. In any case, this is academic because you can't stop it.

Aditya Sehgal 09/12/2011 - 12:56pm

Excellent point. The freedom of speech is the freedom of choice. If you do not like what your friend is posting on facebook, un-friend him. Its that simple.

sanjay 09/12/2011 - 09:53am

Censorship by any other name is censorship too, so let's say you are in favor of reasonable censorship, and that by it's very nature is subjective, of course there will be common ground where we can agree on censoring a particular piece of expression, a really nasty tweet for example, but then we can always argue that in spite of so many nasty tweets going around our civilization has not ended, so it's not that bad after all. Not that we should not debate if a particular tweet should have been allowed in the first place, but for the debate to be meaningful it should be based on specific tweets, and how are we better off without that tweet than with it? Yes there is a trade-off, unpleasant feeling being one of them, but we need to answer if unpleasant feeling warrants compromising free-speech. I don't expect it to be the easiest of choice.

Kamal Upadhyay 09/12/2011 - 09:09am

Agree with you Mr. Tharoor on all points made and explained by you. As you are master of words so there is no chance for me to look for loop holes in any of your points. But who will give guarantee that once Censor ship will be in place then only religious and abusive content will be removed. Few months back same govt thrown out Baba Ramdev from Ram Neelam ground for his Anshan. You are happy to get political comments but what if next minister doesn't want to listen anything against him or her.

R.Muralidharan 09/12/2011 - 09:06am

Under the pretext of communal violence Kapil tried to censor news in the Google and requested them to withdraw some 250 articles damaging to Congress party president. If they are so inflammatory congress can sue the networks and this is not the way to do things

Sudarshan 09/12/2011 - 08:55am

Sibal wanted religious censorship? Which is why most of government requests to google (255 out of 358) are for GOVERNMENT CRITICISM? Shashi is implying that the government is a religion? I call bullshit.

http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/IN/?p=2011-06

And as regards "scurrilous material about certain religions" - Shouldn't his congress government be focusing on how to target the rioters? Or does it believe the rioters are merely innocent victims of vile facebook posts, and they could not but help destroy property and indulge in arson? The only restriction to freedom is that your freedom ends where my nose begins. The rioters are the people who need to be targeted, persecuted and made an example of. Shashi supports a mobocracy, where any misinformed idiot who believes someone is insulting his prophet has a free license to riot, and the fear of this retaliation (dhimmitude) should guide the government to prevent anybody from even thinking of raising a voice against this.

To a query on twitter as to how M F Hussain has the right to paint nude goddesses but internet caricatures need to be controlled, Tharoor replies "one aspires to be art and the other seeks to inflame". His double standards are disappointing, especially given his past profile and his representation of a new India.

Et tu, Tharoor?

https://twitter.com/#!/ShashiTharoor/status/144664240719011840

Bhagwad Park 09/12/2011 - 09:57am

You're absolutely correct. Rioters should not be treated as if they are innocent helpless victims. Are we to believe that they're insane or children? Then either put them in mental institutions or punish their guardians. It's the job of the state and police to protect citizens from physical violence by putting the fear of god into those who go on these rampages.

And yes, the fake distinction between "art" and "inflammatory speeches" is very apparent. Who defines art? If you didn't know that M F Husain was a painter, can you make a 100% distinction between art/inflammatory paintings? No. Either both are allowed, or neither is allowed.

chennaitvnews 09/12/2011 - 08:51am

The rationale behind some kind of regulation is very valid, considering that a vast majority here can get carried away or be influenced by intelligent words and pictures. But the apprehension based on experience, which says such law would only be used to curb political opinion and allow those denigrating opposition, cannot be ruled out.

Anonymity in social media is a right and that it gives a courage to say what if not, should be seen as a plus. That one can be irresponsible and go on to abuse just because he is anonymous is absurd and myth for it is easy to track those who dangerously abuse. It is again a ploy to find out who they are so that other pressures can be applied to mute .

http://www.chennaitvnews.com/