Post date: Dec 15, 2011 4:28:53 PM
President of India's Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) Rajesh Charia says he is opposed to the censorship of social media but adds that self-regulation should be in place.
NEW DELHI, INDIA (DECEMBER 15, 2011) ANI- President of India's Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) Rajesh Charia has said he is opposed to the censorship of social media but adds that self-regulation should be in place. Charia made the comments while addressing mediapersons on Thursday (December 15) on the sidelines of a meeting with representatives of social media companies and Internet service providers in New Delhi.
He also touched on the success of introducing e-governance to rural communities. "Today, the discussion was absolutely different with the government's objective of sending all the e-governance applications to the last man of the rural, to the last man of the Indian rural and they were so apprehensive that they want, that they should be getting the feedback from the rural Indian citizens so that the government should rectify their approach for spreading e-governance for the success of this," said president of internet service providers association of India, Rajesh Chharia.
Chharia added that censorship was not an issue for ISPA, highlighting that it was the responsibility of content providers to ensure a degree of self-regulation.
"I think there is no issue of censorship at all even from ISPA's side, we have really opposed the censorship but still we are saying that self-regulation should be there and all these content providers who are coming from the overseas to provide the content to India should be little bit responsible in terms of Indian culture and ethos," added Chharia.
Social networking sites like Facebook have recognised the government's wish to minimise the amount of offensive content on the web. The California-based company said it removes content that violates company rules on nudity and inciting violence and hatred.
Meanwhile, secretary in the Department of Telecommunications R Chandrasekhar elaborated on the proceedings of the meeting.
"This meeting was an interaction with all stakeholders in the government, outside the government, social media companies, NGOs and others to discuss guidelines which have been put out by the DIT (Department of Information and Technology) in draft form for public consultation on use of social media by the government to elicit citizens' responses and reactions on various issues and in particular projects relating to e-governance and other projects in the government. So, the interactions covered were what are the ways of using the social media, what are the issues in government officials using them, what are the examples, what are the different examples of effective use of social media by different governments across the country," said Chandrasekhar.
India now has 100 million Internet users, less than a tenth of the country's population of 1.2 billion, but still the third-largest user base behind China and the United States. It is seen swelling to 300 million users in the next three years.