The Indian government’s relentless pursuit to ban technology continued when they sided with the Delhi High Court’s judgement to hold Facebook, Google and a bunch of other companies liable for obscene content uploaded by users. My colleague Emil Protalinski covered the story on ZDNet’s Friending Facebook blog. Responding to a complaint against the companies, a High Court judge threatened to ban social media websites “like in China.”
Earlier today India’s most social web savvy parliamentarian, Shashi Tharoor made a very intriguing comment on the whole issue. He sent out the following tweet:
Here’s why the tweet above is interesting:
- India’s telecomm minister Kapil Sibal, infamous for his desire to curb free speech and block Facebook/Google belongs to the same political party as Shashi Tharoor
- Shashi Tharoor has in the past rubbed many politicians the wrong way due to his tweets
- He makes a very valid point
- The issue now has a voice against the government within the parliament
Will the courts go after the carriers or OEMs if the phones are used to transmit and access content that they want Indians to not see?
