India's top telecommunications official said Tuesday that Internet giants such as Facebook and Google have ignored his demands to screen derogatory material from their sites, so the government would have to act on its own. The dispute highlights India's continuing difficulty in balancing the Internet culture of freewheeling discourse with its home-grown religious and political sensitivities.
Government officials are upset about Web pages that are insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and major religious figures. Kapil Sibal, India's telecommunications minister, said he spoke repeatedly with officials from major Internet companies over the past three months and asked them to come up with a voluntary framework to keep offensive material off the Internet.
"This is a matter of great concern to us. We have to take care of the sensibility of our people," he said. In a meeting Monday, the Internet companies told him there was nothing they could do, he said, so the government would formulate a policy on its own. He declined to specify what that policy would be.
"We are seeking their co-operation, and if somebody is not willing to cooperate on incendiary material like this, it is the duty of government to think of steps that we need to take," he said. "We don't want to interfere in freedom of the press, but this kind of material should not be allowed." Indian media reports said that during the meeting Monday, Sibal specifically told officials from Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft about posts that were insulting to Singh, Gandhi and religious leaders.
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