Can Internet be Censored?

The Author, Haritha Dhinakaran, is 2nd year, BBA.LLB student of Symbiosis Law School, Pune. She is currently interning with LatestLaws.com.

INTRODUCTION-

The major purpose, for which the Internet was developed, was to provide man with the fast access to limitless amount of data. The society has adopted globalization that has brought everyone closer and has introduced the concept of comprehensive connectivity.

The growth of the Internet has ensured that information can travel around the world within a period of few seconds. Therefore, it can very well be construed that there can be an abuse of this freedom as well.

One big step that can curb this freedom is “censorship”. The intentions of bringing about such censorship of Internet are for the inspection, control and suppression of the objectionable content that can be accessed, published or can be viewed in the Internet.

 WHAT IS “CENSORING”?

The term “censor” was introduced first into the Roman Empire. The word censor derives its roots from the word “censere” which is of a latin terminology which means to appraise, value or judge.

We have the tendency of browsing through the internet and oftentimes we are blocked and restricted from accessing different websites and certain objectionable content.

The intention of censoring content in the internet is the desire to protect the children from unsuitable information and at the same time is an authority measure to attempt control over the nation’s access to information.

INTERNET CENSORING TECHNOLOGIES-

The following list encapsulates the most commonly used internet censorship technologies-

• Tampering of the DNS-

There are a few countries where the authorities have control over the domain name servers. The authorities have the right to “Deregister” any domain that is hosting nefarious, objectionable and iniquitous content. This makes the website invisible to internet surfers from accessing the site.

• IP Blocking-

There are governments of some countries that have control over the internet service providers. They can block certain IP addresses of the websites that they are in objection of.

• Packet Filtering-

This is one of the newest and the most sophisticated internet censoring technologies. This technology involves the actual filtering of each page. When the data is sent over for publication in the internet, it is segregated into smaller units that are called packets. Communication that contains a form of a forbidden message is disrupted by dropping off the connection for the same.

INTERNET CENSORING PROS AND CONS-

Pros-

1. The internet does give access to information to everyone for free, but it has become the very breeding ground for the arising of violent behavior. There are criminals who have been spreading content that is hateful and have severely impacted the youth life.
2. Content that are sexually explicit on the internet have been misguiding the children and the youth. It has fostered violence, pervertism and rapes.
3. Innocent youth have been recruited into numerous terrorist organizations because of the Internet. Censorship has helped stop such damaging activities.
4. Cyber bullying is on a heavy toll these days because of the various platforms that are provided by the internet, that have been brutally misused by certain people. This not only affects an individual and his family but it does affect the society as a whole.
5. Internet censorship has helped maintain cyber security.
6. Piracy of copyrighted content can be prevented to censorship.
7. Spreading of fake news has become something that has become much common these days. Penalization and blocking of such websites that are extremely misleading can help act as a deterrent to such acts.
8. Extremely dangerous clips of sexual abuse and mal treatment of women and children are being uploaded on the internet that can cause severe impact and damaging views on the minds of innocent people.
9. In order to protect the mental health of adolescents and the present generation children from increasingly disturbing adult sites and misleading content, censorship would serve as an ideal solution.

Cons-

1. The major drawback of introducing censorship in internet content is that there is a gross violation of the freedom of speech and expression.
2. Internet censorship has led to the government practicing concentration of powers, thereby blocking access to the honest criticism of the government and they can easily label the opposition parties’ comments as ‘hate speech’. This will therefore, lead to dictatorship.
3. The Internet has been treated as a platform that has always strived for equality. Anybody and everybody had the right to publish and access content easily. But with censorship, money power would rule the Internet, and rich people would have the facility and write anything and everything they wanted and the poor would have to go through various procedures to not get their much- wanted to be heard content blocked.
4. Changes in the society, especially ones that are radical would not be propagated in the society with the existence of censorship. Leaders who have orthodox beliefs simply would refuse to accept change and may censor articles.
5. Every human being is entitled to his or her opinion and therefore everyone has opinions on what is good and what is bad. Therefore, every content that is censored would lead to protests.

INTERNET CENSORSHIP IN INDIA-

India, like most of the countries across the world has constantly been prone to the situation wherein the legal frameworks that were earlier very effective, now seems to be incomplete or blunt instruments. Reforms have been constantly brought about, and the pressure for this reform has been brought about due to awareness.

India had previously dealt with the issues pertaining to Internet and its censorship with the help of two very important laws that have been enlisted below-

1.         Information Technology Act, 2000

2.         Indian Penal Code, 1860

The Indian Penal Code consists of provisions that are penal in nature and apply to several different media platforms. The Information Technology Act, however, can be enforced with specificity to just computer systems.

These acts, as well as various supplementary acts, like the Emblems and Names Act (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950, The National Honor Act, 1971 suffer from various shortcomings due to improper implementation.

The Indian Law has appeared to be very liberal regarding the basic concept of censorship. The very example of this can be derived from Article 19(1) of the Constitution of India that helps protect the right to free speech and expression. With consonance to this provision the Information Technology Act has various provisions that have been used to censor the content online. The sections that pertain to the Internet Censorship in any online platforms are Sections 66A, 69A and 79. Section 79 promotes the concept of private censorship.

Section 66A is the one that has received a lot of media attention as there have been several arrests made in lieu to this section.  This provision underlines and penalizes the practice of propagating offensive messages using media or other computer resources. The challenge that arises with regards this section is that, this provision provides a very wide ambit that could essentially include anything offensive, menacing and that could be inconvenient. The punishment for this offence is three years imprisonment.

But in support to having a wide ambit for the phraseology, is that it could criminalize any behavior on the Internet and this has been enforced in several cases wherein people have been arrested for posting illicit content on the web.

Two other sections that garner lesser attention would be Sections 69A and 79 because these have been substantial provision that does not generate punitive action. Section 69A has authorized the government to block any content that is being accessed in public under various grounds. Any website holder, that refuses to block the content that is ordered by the government could be punished for a period that could extent up to seven years.

Section 79 of the Information Technology Act essentially requires the website holder or the intermediary to practice and observe certain guidelines to avail any sort of exemption from liabilities. These guidelines were initially posted in the year 2011 and has since mandated that intermediaries must take down any information that is grossly harassing, obscene, pornographic, libelous of anyone else’s privacy and brings about any indication of racial, ethnic segregation. This provision requires the intermediaries to act on private complaints for a wide range of offences.

The shortcoming of this provision is that it essentially makes all the intermediaries into the watchdogs of the World Wide Web, and thereby offers very limited provision as a recourse or an escape.

In India, content creators have been awarded with many privileges. Pirated content is removed anytime the content creator goes to the court. This facility has been increasingly utilized these days. In the year 2015, there was a ban imposed on websites such as Daily motion, GitHub and Vimeo as they could have content relating to ISIS. But this ban was lifted later owing to public pressure.

INTERNET CENSORSHIP IN OTHER COUNTRIES-

Chinese laws have been increasingly strict in this matter and have limited what the citizens have access to and to what they can view. Google had initially entered the Chinese Market in the year 2006; they had to acclimatize themselves to the laws of the country.

These kinds of restrictions have not imposed only on China but also across many countries in the world such as North Korea. North Korea is considered to be one of the most highly censored countries in the world because all forms of media in this country is state owned, and they have only one news agency in the whole country. Another such example of media and internet censorship would be Russia; they have a “single register” that contains all the URLs of the websites, their domain names and other IP addresses.

In the United States, there has been no blockage to information, news sites and other social media websites unlike countries like China or North Korea. But since the incident of Edward Snowden having released the NSA information, there has been a huge revelation of the US government having surveilled its citizens.

THE PRIMARY QUERY-

The major question that arises is that would allowing censorship make India uphold its motto of being a democracy, or would it rather transform into pseudo-democracy or a regulated democracy. The being said, imposing restrictions on the free flow of information, views and thoughts would lead to a massive havoc in the country and the society. Restricted press, media and the internet would only lead to never ending cycle of controversy.

CONCLUSION-

More than propagating the idea of censorship, the propaganda of self-censorship should be something that everyone must be subjected to. If that is followed by every person in a honest manner, there would be no need of removing any explicit content from the Internet. Secondly, issues that are derogatory shouldn’t be brought up in a derogatory sense, and unsolicited opinion should be refrained from being passed. Such comments would unnecessarily warrant disturbance in public peace and therefore, we as a society should act towards the betterment of the nation as a whole.

REFERENCES-

1. RIT Reporter, Censoring the Internet,(https://reporter.rit.edu/tech/censoring-internet Last accessed 31 May, 2020)
2. Dominic Jeff, Internet Censorship is here: How far will it go? , (https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2019/05/internet-censorship-is-here-how-far-will-it-go/ Last accessed 31 May, 2020)
3. Legal Services India, Internet Censorship (http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/946/Internet-Censorship.html Last accessed 31 May, 2020)