I am sure, the word ‘Kolaveri’ needs no elaboration! Thanks to the phenomenal success of this latest song. From being a total stranger, this new lingo is the latest addition to my language.
Another day, another morning. I picked up my cup of tea and newspaper. I could see Mr Kapil Sibal occupying the coveted position on the front page. As I gazed around, the keywords – IT cyber law regulation, social media, Google, Facebook raised my interest and I began to read. As I finished the whole article, I couldn’t help myself from saying “Why this Kolaveri Sibal JI” ? 🙂
So, it isn’t a secret anymore! Kapil Sibal wants to regulate the content that appears on the social networking sites. According to him the Social Media is a very powerful ‘weapon’ now. Of the capacity to incite communal riots! I agree Sibal Ji. Social media is indeed a very powerful medium. After all, the whole Egyptial revolution from Tahir Square started with a facebook update! It is through social media that now we have the Kolaveri Cult! Through social media, each one of us has our own voice. Voice for our thoughts and opinions. The reaction to the recent incident of a youth slapping Sharad Pawar was of joy amongst the general public . By tweeting, re tweeting we could make him trend on Twitter. It could be easily inferred, he did not hold a good position in the eyes of the masses.
A nice comment in today’s paper said that the Indian politicians are “too emotional” about their online image. The Jan Lokpal Bill wants to empower the common man over the political class. The recent movement has left the them intimidated. And to add to their fear, we have these “another shoe thrown” episodes often. Given the statistics quoted by the paper, the enforcement agencies sent requests to remove “236 communities” and “19 blogs” that contained criticism of the government. Only a mere 10% contributed to impersonation or pornography.
Coming to the point, what intrigued me was why this uproar NOW? Cause he stumbled upon a page that did not think highly of Mrs Sonia Gandhi? Since so many years we’ve been hearing a lot about cyber crimes. So many young girls targeted every now and then. About 252 and 219 government websites were hacked in the year 2010,2011 respectively. Why did Mr Sibal not think of enhancing the existing cyber laws then? And what he is advocating now is only to safeguard the public image of the ‘neta class‘. How would this content regulation help avoiding serious threat to our national security information?
Why is Mr Sibal too concerned for the online or cyber image after all? It is said, “As you sow, so shall you reap”. You want to influence all the mediums of information. You want to decide what a news channel should talk and what should float on a social media site. And then still claim to live in a Democratic India! They say the social media has the power of igniting a communal unrest, if the words are not chosen well. But before that I would like to ask – How often has that happened ? Your party could manage to garner all the attention for the wrong reasons throughout the tenure, and you dont want us to talk about it? People are you game? Think before just posting another Manmohan Singh joke on your wall. The Big Daddy is watching you!
In my honest opinion, unlike other media channels, Internet is not bound by geographies. What seems appropriate to us might be objectionable in another geography. So to deal with what is objectionable in your geography can get a bit complex. Of course to monitor the content floating on the social media sites is no more Democratic. We should rather invest our time in enhancing the cyber laws. Monitoring the content would not, in any case, help us thwart another cyber attack on Indian Security Agency.
Hope sense prevails!
This is well explained and I and agree too.