After the government’s demand to social networking sites to screen their content before uploading it, the cyber law experts have criticized the government’s move by saying that it should not be left to the social networking sites to decide what contains defamatory content and what does not. The existing laws on identifying defamatory content and removing it from the electronic medium are what need to be strengthened. Such action taken by the government in policing the internet will lead to a large number of legal issues and challenges.  In the midst of this controversy, Google India is said to have made it very clear that they would comply with the laid down law of the land but they will not remove any content from their site only because it is found to be controversial.

There are law enforcement agencies in India which have been active in post screening the online content and they have also asked the particular websites to remove any controversial material in relation to any politicians or political parties. Last year Google had received a total of 282 requests from the law enforcement agencies to remove controversial content from their site.

Cyber experts criticize governments move to censor the internet

Report by Priyanka S Menon