Indian IT minister says government will not censor social media
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Indian Information Technology (IT) minister Kapil Sibal said at a Mumbai IT summit that the government has no plan to censor social media. "We have never had any intention nor did we ever say we are going to censor social media," he said, "but we do believe that all media must obey the laws of this country". Sibal's government had planned last year to introduce guidelines to prevent "blasphemous material" on the internet. Google suggested the plans were unconstitutional and against the freedom of speech. Google later removed offensive contents
Indian Information Technology (IT) minister Kapil Sibal said at a Mumbai IT summit that the government has no plan to censor social media. "We have never had any intention nor did we ever say we are going to censor social media," he said, "but we do believe that all media must obey the laws of this country".
Sibal's government had planned last year to introduce guidelines to prevent "blasphemous material" on the internet. Google suggested the plans were unconstitutional and against the freedom of speech. Google later removed offensive contents when the court ordered.
21 companies including Google and Facebook were brought to court regarding some of their sites' content last year. The court found the companies responsible for developing means to counter unacceptable content. Sibal said it had nothing to do with the government; "It is between the complainant and those who have been called".
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Licensed archive reporting by Wikinews contributors. Text: CC BY 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/). Original source date retained. 411 has not independently verified this archive report.
Read the source: Wikinews ↗Source published 15 Feb 2012, 05:30 am IST
