Click to play videoSome social networking site users scrawled obscenities over the Indian national flag, some critisised the Father of the Nation and some even negated political leaders.
Popular search engine Google has now allowed the Mumbai Police to play ‘net police’ after complaints that social networking site, Orkut conveyed anti-India messages.
Says Jt Commissioner Of Police, Crime, Meeran Borwankar, "It is an informal tie-up that we have. These sites could be a threat to the law and order situation and therefore need to be clamped. But trust us, we won't train our guns on nitty gritties."
Many Orkut users, however, feel there is no need for this kind of censorship.
The big question asked on the show India 360 on CNN-IBN was whether social networking websites are more prone to abuse. On the panel to discuss the issue were sociologist, Dr Radhika Chopra and blogger, Dina Mehta.
Should Internet content be monitored?
With the Mumbai police now playing ‘net police’ to regulate and monitor content, is the move practical?
Chopra opined that the Internet is like a sharp weapon used by hackers and pornographers to make easy victims of people who are vulnerable. However, looking at the issue on a wider context, networking sites like Orkut has taken up many social causes. Groups of people have come together to donate blood. And it was Orkut that provided general information about the Indian student who died in the Virginia Tech shooting.
Mehta said that the cyber crimes are as evitable as it happens in the physical world so it was a naïve step taken by Google to tie-up with the police for the content to be monitered.
Is Internet a force to reckon with?
However, with the rising number of crimes that take place in the Internet, isn’t there a need of content regulation and monitoring?
“Social network users are mainly the youth, so for them the websites are extensions of their lives. And they crawl the net, fleeting from one website to the other so they are not discreet about what they are doing so why should content be monitored?” questioned Mehta.
There are people forming network communities who help each other in an individual level. So has the Internet come across as an empowering force as it has, in most cases now become an integral part of people’s lives?
“The Internet is extremely empowering. It has changed my life in many ways. It topples the system of hierarchy and is a level-playing field. It has a social nature to it. It encourages charity on the web. The blogs could have an anonymous byline but you can say that the ones who write them are not faking things,” said Mehta.
So with the Internet having a strong influence in their lives that takes them to a virtual world together, is the next generation going to be ones disconnected with their realities?
“What used to happen in the streets as of seeing groups of youth getting together socialising is happening on the Internet now. The Internet is bringing the public into the private space in many different ways, and that creates a different social world. It is a crossing of a threshold that we have not addressed fully,” said Chopra.
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