Lurker Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 It can, but it can do so only on specific complaints that are made. It is simply not possible to automate the process of deciding whether some text, picture or video violates Indian law. All Google can do is to manually decide whether something is objectionable. Even a truckload of techies cannot automate the process of censoring, it is as simple as that.ICF is ONE website and it requires 10 people. The internet has tens of millions of websites . Now you do the math. By the way, ICF probably runs on a server which has probably has its own agreement with ICF about such content. Google has no such contractual liability as it has its own servers. Ummm not really. The reason companies like Google and Facebook find themselves into such situations time and again is rather simple: a) These products were NOT built for Indian(or Chinese) crowd. These were targetted towards Americans, and Western, crowds. And hence when these were concieved they took into accounts the different legal and intellactual property rights of the country(US/West). So when these products move overseas shouldnt they modify themselves with local legality? This would be no different to a search Engine that was invented in China (Baidu) and has quickly gained a lot of traction in China. The difference between Google and Baidu, aside from language, is that Baidu follows most of the guidelines, Google does not. Baidu can do it (technology wise), Google can not? b) When caught in countries with a different set of rules, they quickly get down to some nonsense about how vast Internet is. Yes Internet is vast, but we are not talking about Internet, we are talking of Google and Facebook and YouTube etc. YouTube, for example, has some strict regulations in place. Mostly because of intellactual property rights. Cricket clips for example are often posted which are viewed in only certain countries. Why can't google do something similar where a particular search, say naked godesses for example, dont show up in India?? Dude I can handle this on my BI application with 10K product, Google cant with 100s of billions? Quit making excuses for them. Let me just add that the real cowards are the govt of India. If they really think that Google, Yahoo etc are doing something objectionable, just ban them and then bear the consequences. All the gateways into the country are controlled by the govt. GoI would not hesitate to ban a shipping or trucking company suspected of smuggling, but it will not touch Google directly. Instead they choose to browbeat these companies through this drama in the court. As with every other thing this govt does, this is also going to end with egg on on its face. Jeez, dude this is a legal HC directive, where does GOI comes into the picture?
Lurker Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Lurker has hit the nail on the head' date=' I think. [b']But isn't that a violation of freedom of speech on the internet? By the way if pornography is illegal in India, then why not censor it too? Its not freedom of speech issue because even Google and Facebook's lawyer have not used that here. They keep absolving themselves of the crime. An easy way to differntiate is when MF Hussain drew the naked Hindu Godess painting. Many didnt like it, it got ugly and he was hounded out of the country. But MF Hussein owned the responsibility and tried to explain the scenario. Didnt work in the end and it became a debate about an artist rights etc. Google and Facebook experience something similar and they dont admit to any responsibility at all, and end up yapping about how Mark Zuckerberg is in California!! That logic is frankly demeaning to a court and a nation if you get deeper into this. xxx
achilles Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Comparison with China was on the excessive side, but what is the bigger issue you have with the judgement here DK? Personally the defacing of Gods and Godesses have rarely bothered me, but what does bother is the callous atitude of large companies who refuse to own up to anything. From the article you put up here is a line - Google India agreed they were obscene, but expressed inability to install a wholesale filter to remove such content. "There are billions of pieces of content being uploaded online. It is simply not practical," a Google lawyer told the Court. Really? So Google can not control what gets uploaded on web, fair enough, but it sure can control what shows up in its Searches. It has a truckload of techies who work on its Search Engine software, it is Google's USP, its bread and butter, and most importantly its revenue generator. How can Google make money when it can and shave off any responsibility like that? Same with Facebook. They say they dont control what a member uploads. But they are quick to make every little penny off it. How does that work out? Put a different spin to this. ICF is owned by a few people and moderated by few others. Say 10 people put together. There may be thousands of members who post at different times. What happens when one of these posters put a streaming link? Can the Moderators/OWners claim innocence?? Course not. ICF would be shut down immediately. Why are the rules different for Google & Facebook? if anything the latter, with their resources, are in a better position to handle it. xxx Every single word you've written makes sense.
seedhi Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Ummm not really. The reason companies like Google and Facebook find themselves into such situations time and again is rather simple: a) These products were NOT built for Indian(or Chinese) crowd. These were targetted towards Americans, and Western, crowds. And hence when these were concieved they took into accounts the different legal and intellactual property rights of the country(US/West). So when these products move overseas shouldnt they modify themselves with local legality? This would be no different to a search Engine that was invented in China (Baidu) and has quickly gained a lot of traction in China. The difference between Google and Baidu, aside from language, is that Baidu follows most of the guidelines, Google does not. Baidu can do it (technology wise), Google can not? Baidu does manual censorship. All they have is a list of banned websites, keywords, authors etc. Also, it receives input from the Chinese govt agencies on what to ban. And who is stopping any Indian company to come up with an Indian Baidu?? b) When caught in countries with a different set of rules, they quickly get down to some nonsense about how vast Internet is. Yes Internet is vast, but we are not talking about Internet, we are talking of Google and Facebook and YouTube etc. YouTube, for example, has some strict regulations in place. Mostly because of intellactual property rights. Cricket clips for example are often posted which are viewed in only certain countries. Why can't google do something similar where a particular search, say naked godesses for example, dont show up in India?? Dude I can handle this on my BI application with 10K product, Google cant with 100s of billions? Quit making excuses for them.Why should search keywords be banned in India? The keyword is not the offensive material but the text/pictures/videos themselves. If the GoI is is worried about offensive content, then all they have to do is to ban websites that host offensive content at the ISP level. Keywords like "sex" "nude" "kamasutra" etc can also lead of offensive websites, so should they be banned as well? Jeez, dude this is a legal HC directive, where does GOI comes into the picture?Read the article that I posted #2 post in the thread. This is what our GoI submitted in the trial court: The government on Friday told a Delhi trial court that there is sufficient material to proceed against 21 social networking sites for offences of promoting enmity between classes and causing prejudice to national integration.Have you any idea how ridiculous this sounds?
seedhi Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 An easy way to differntiate is when MF Hussain drew the naked Hindu Godess painting. Many didnt like it, it got ugly and he was hounded out of the country. But MF Hussein owned the responsibility and tried to explain the scenario. Didnt work in the end and it became a debate about an artist rights etc. Google and Facebook experience something similar and they dont admit to any responsibility at all, and end up yapping about how Mark Zuckerberg is in California!! That logic is frankly demeaning to a court and a nation if you get deeper into this. xxxThere is a difference between MF Hussain and Google. Hussain created the offensive content which was banned for display by the Maharashtra govt. Google and Facebook DO NOT CREATE offensive content. In the case when Google maps had an incorrect map of PoK, google India corrected it to show the whole of Kashmir as part of India.
seedhi Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Let me reiterate that this cowardly govt is trying to an indirect censorship of the internet by firing from the shoulders of the search engines. If the GoI is sincere, why does it not ban offensive websites at the ISP level ? It knows that if it tries to ban websites at the ISP level then thousands will have to be banned, even CNN and BBC. The people of India will not stand for such an outrage though, so the GoI wants an indirect censorship.
Lurker Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Baidu does manual censorship. All they have is a list of banned websites, keywords, authors etc. Also, it receives input from the Chinese govt agencies on what to ban. Long story short there is a way to do this. Whether you agree with that is a whole different ballgame. Nobody is asking Google to start following a Congress Govt directive, or BJP for that matter. But simply to follow the laws of the land and be held responsible for when they do not. Whats wrong with that? And who is stopping any Indian company to come up with an Indian Baidu?? You asking me lol? I am the one who keeps yapping on how we have multi billion software giants who have hardly produced any product of note and keep milking Indians with bodyshopping 25 years since these giants came into being. Why should search keywords be banned in India? The keyword is not the offensive material but the text/pictures/videos themselves. If the GoI is is worried about offensive content, then all they have to do is to ban websites that host offensive content at the ISP level. Keywords like "sex" "nude" "kamasutra" etc can also lead of offensive websites, so should they be banned as well? My issue has been quite clear in the sense on who should be held responsible and when. We can argue about what needs to come under the scanner, or not. But once the line in sand is drawn there should be no nonsense of how Internet is a vast media, how Google India is nothing but a subsidiary of Google and shouldnt be held responsible. Read the article that I posted #2 post in the thread. This is what our GoI submitted in the trial court: Have you any idea how ridiculous this sounds? Yes and no. Yes because it does sound populist and ridiculous. No, because they did the right legal thing...took it to Court. Me and you can discuss all day long whats good and whats bad but if Court agrees me and you would be in agreement as the law of the land. Its not that Govt is forcing the company on its own or anything. Now surely its not GOI fault if Google's lawyers are inept?
Vijay.Sharma Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/filter-content-or-face-blackout-delhi-hc-warns-facebook-google/articleshow/11464353.cms IMO the court is being a little stubborn here. Showing China as an example was not in the best taste.Irrelevant to his particular news item, not everything that China does is evil
Lurker Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 There is a difference between MF Hussain and Google. Hussain created the offensive content which was banned for display by the Maharashtra govt. Google and Facebook DO NOT CREATE offensive content. In the case when Google maps had an incorrect map of PoK' date= google India corrected it to show the whole of Kashmir as part of India. Thats the whole quandry - Google and Facebook creating NOTHING, zilch, shunya, nada but make ALL the money off it without any ramifications. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds??? MFH created those painting, which should have been his artistic right (I know you dont quite agree), but he owned up to it and left(or was made to leave) the country. Google will make many times more money than MF, would have created NOTHING, and would try to go scott free in every single country with Internet is huge and we dont have any obligation nonsense. You can not possibly tell me you are fine with that model? :hmmm:
Vijay.Sharma Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Was just watching an NDTV program just now and Nidhi Razdan gave this statistic - from some 358 things that the Govt told Google was "offensive" content it seems that 250+ were related to criticism of the Govt policies and their work. And just 1 of them was regarding national security. I can understand that the categorization could be subjective and media sensationalization but even then there would be at least 200 of those 350 offensive which are related to criticism of the kangress sarkaar. Now we know the motivations of the government. Bloody idiots Edit - And even though I do believe that some kinda restrictions should be there to take action on hate mongering, there is so much distrust in this government's intentions. In fact even the ppl sitting in the studio in NDTV were saying the same that they just distrust the government's intentions.
seedhi Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Long story short there is a way to do this. Whether you agree with that is a whole different ballgame. Nobody is asking Google to start following a Congress Govt directive, or BJP for that matter. But simply to follow the laws of the land and be held responsible for when they do not. Whats wrong with that?The whole thing is that the law is unclear on the issue of whether search keywords should be blocked. IMO search keywords are not offensive material. My issue has been quite clear in the sense on who should be held responsible and when. We can argue about what needs to come under the scanner, or not. But once the line in sand is drawn there should be no nonsense of how Internet is a vast media, how Google India is nothing but a subsidiary of Google and shouldnt be held responsible.There is no line drawn as of now, in the case of search engines. And I am surprised at the attitude of the High Court which is threatening to ban Google and Facebook. If it has balls then bloody try to impose the ban and then bear the consequences. Why do they want Google to change itself? Ban google.com in India and get it over with. Yes and no. Yes because it does sound populist and ridiculous. No, because they did the right legal thing...took it to Court. Me and you can discuss all day long whats good and whats bad but if Court agrees me and you would be in agreement as the law of the land. Its not that Govt is forcing the company on its own or anything. Now surely its not GOI fault if Google's lawyers are inept?Do you see how hypocritical the govt sounds? If the govt is of the opinion that Google.com is committing "offences of promoting enmity" then WHY DOESNT THE GOVT BAN GOOGLE.COM?? If a trading company is suspected of smuggling, will the govt allow it to continue to trade while prosecuting it in the court? Never. Therefore, I claim that this govt is cowardly.
seedhi Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Thats the whole quandry - Google and Facebook creating NOTHING, zilch, shunya, nada but make ALL the money off it without any ramifications. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds??? MFH created those painting, which should have been his artistic right (I know you dont quite agree), but he owned up to it and left(or was made to leave) the country. Google will make many times more money than MF, would have created NOTHING, and would try to go scott free in every single country with Internet is huge and we dont have any obligation nonsense. You can not possibly tell me you are fine with that model? :hmmm:Before wanting Google and Facebook to shoulder responsibility, one needs to ask if the GoI is willing to shoulder any for its actions. If the DoT has submitted that 21 companies, including Google and Facebook are promoting enmity in the country why havent these companies like Google and Facebook already been banned? Basically this cowardly govt wants to browbeat the companies while not sticking its head out for criticism.
seedhi Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Thats the whole quandry - Google and Facebook creating NOTHING, zilch, shunya, nada but make ALL the money off it without any ramifications. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds??? MFH created those painting, which should have been his artistic right (I know you dont quite agree), but he owned up to it and left(or was made to leave) the country. Google will make many times more money than MF, would have created NOTHING, and would try to go scott free in every single country with Internet is huge and we dont have any obligation nonsense. You can not possibly tell me you are fine with that model? :hmmm:How Facebook and Google make money is orthogonal to this issue. The simple facts are: 1. Google etc do not create offensive content. 2. Search keywords do not constitute offensive material 3. The actual offenders would be the websites that host offensive content. 4. GoI can ban offensive websites at the ISP level without going through the route of search engines.
Lurker Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 The whole thing is that the law is unclear on the issue of whether search keywords should be blocked. IMO search keywords are not offensive material. There is no line drawn as of now, in the case of search engines. And I am surprised at the attitude of the High Court which is threatening to ban Google and Facebook. If it has balls then bloody try to impose the ban and then bear the consequences. Doesn't surprise me. Does it surprise you? This whole Internet saga is roughly 10 years old. Mainstream Internet anyway. There needs to be clear defined boundary. Countries, like India & China, are struggling with it clearly. Mostly because these Internet giants were not conceived with India & China in mind. But conversations like these will perhaps start getting those guardlines in place?? Why do they want Google to change itself? Ban google.com in India and get it over with. Do you see how hypocritical the govt sounds? If the govt is of the opinion that Google.com is committing "offences of promoting enmity" then WHY DOESNT THE GOVT BAN GOOGLE.COM?? Dude whats with the ban?? Just ask Google to modify as per the laws. I gave you an example already. YouTube does not allow certain cricketing content to be shown in US while they are available elsewhere. Google can do the same. It has all the IP origin information it would need to do something like that. Therefore, I claim that this govt is cowardly. Which I am fine with :giggle: My whole discussion was around how Google rips off money from everyone and claims innocence. They do not build a single content. News for example. They will put news from BBC, CNN, Reuters and pass it as their own. And make money in the process too for somebody else's hardwork. But when caught in a spot they shrug their shoulders with - Ummm dont blame me, Internet is so vast. I am not on board with that atitude, you may very well be :agree:
ganeshran Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 ^ Google rips off others The sites you mentioned have the option of disallowing Google from indexing their content. All it requires is a 2 line text file on their server. They dont do it because Google brings them a majority of their hits. This leads to higher page impressions and higher revenue from ad clicks on their sites.
asterix Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Ha ha ha.. just read this comment in TOI.. Indian Forever (Delhi) 2 hrs ago (08:19 PM) -- Yes, India is not a totalitarian regime like China. India is a democracy. Indians have democratic rights unlike Chinese. Chinese are forced to live in clean, modern cities. Indians have the freedom to live in slums, poverty and dirty cities. Chinese are forced into a literacy rate of 95%. Indians are free to have the highest number of illiterate people in the world. Chinese are forced into respecting women. Indians have democratically made their nation into the 4th most dangerous for women. Corrupt Chinese politicians/bureaucrats are hanged by their authoritarian regime. Corrupt Indian politicians are free to get away with it thanks to a democratic respect for the rule of law (namely those who can pay have the protection of the law, the poor do not). Chinese are forced into having a unified national identity that makes them a strong and united people. Indians are free to claim areas of India for their own, separate the people there by religion, caste and language, decide who can have human rights and who can't, and spread hate, distrust, and jealousy towards their fellow Indians. In China, you commit a crime and the authoritarian regime will punish you. In democratic India, you commit a crime, you get elected as a politician, enriched as a businessperson, or just plain get away with it. Yes, we Indians have every reason to look down on Chinese, how they must be so envious of their Indian neighbours and their great democracy. We are all so lucky and must be grateful for our freedom to be Indians. The world is so jealous of us.
punjabi_khota Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 My whole discussion was around how Google rips off money from everyone and claims innocence. They do not build a single content. News for example. They will put news from BBC, CNN, Reuters and pass it as their own. And make money in the process too for somebody else's hardwork. But when caught in a spot they shrug their shoulders with - Ummm dont blame me, Internet is so vast. I am not on board with that atitude, you may very well be :agree: Have you heard of "nofollow"
asterix Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Google doesn't hosts the websites. It's a search engine..Youtube hosts the content, hence has this contrywise filtering in place (whereever applicable).
seedhi Posted January 16, 2012 Posted January 16, 2012 Doesn't surprise me. Does it surprise you? This whole Internet saga is roughly 10 years old. Mainstream Internet anyway. There needs to be clear defined boundary. Countries, like India & China, are struggling with it clearly. Mostly because these Internet giants were not conceived with India & China in mind. But conversations like these will perhaps start getting those guardlines in place??I agree with you. In light of the lack of clarity, the behavior of the GoI and and the Delhi High Court is deplorable and hypocritical. As I said, if the GoI has already reached a conclusion about the violation of law and threat to peace by Google.com, then it should follow through and ban Google and Facebook, unless it is hypocritical. Similarly, what is the point of the High Court threatening China-like censorship while the case is going on. Dude whats with the ban??Banning is a legal right of the government, subject to judicial review. The question should be asked is - what is with the threat of ban? It simply does not behoove the court or the GoI to issue threats. Just ask Google to modify as per the laws. I gave you an example already. YouTube does not allow certain cricketing content to be shown in US while they are available elsewhere. Google can do the same. It has all the IP origin information it would need to do something like that.Google etc have already given their answer - they will not change. Now the GoI (if it is principled and believes they are in the wrong) should go ahead and ban them instead of indulging in this tamasha. As has rightly been pointed out above by asterix, youtube is a host and therefore it is liable to remove offensive content based on specific complaints, google is a search engine - a completely different matter. My whole discussion was around how Google rips off money from everyone and claims innocence. They do not build a single content. News for example. They will put news from BBC, CNN, Reuters and pass it as their own. And make money in the process too for somebody else's hardwork. But when caught in a spot they shrug their shoulders with - Ummm dont blame me, Internet is so vast. I am not on board with that atitude, you may very well be :agree:This is so naive and detached from reality I cant believe it. I can give you many other examples of service industries which cannot be held responsible for the actions of other entities. An airlines company is not held responsible if a passenger manages to smuggle goods in the luggage. A bank is not held responsible if a someone deposits illegal money. An email company is not held responsible if terrorists use it to pass information. You can come up with any number of such instances.
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