Time to Get Impatient ?

Context :

Online platforms like Whatsapp don't cooperate citing encryption: Government 

Extract :

Ø  Platforms like WhatsApp and Signal do not cooperate with law enforcement agencies citing end-to-end encryption and don't even honour lawful requisitions, government officials have told a Rajya Sabha panel looking into the issue of pornography on social media and its effects on children.

Ø  Earlier this month, an ad-hoc committee of the Rajya Sabha was formed by the Upper House Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu on the "alarming issue" of pornography on social media and its effects on children and society as a whole

Ø  Appearing before the panel, MEITY in a note said the ministry faces many legal challenges from social media platforms on the issue of pornography as their servers are abroad and they "claim to be governed by laws of hosting country when information for investigation is sought".

Ø  While in some cases, the ministry said, only meta data is shared and for majority cases either mutual legal assistance treaty or letter rogatory is insisted upon which is a very time-consuming process.

Ø  “ Even lawful requisitions are not honoured," the ministry said in the note shared with panel members.

Ø  It further said the law enforcement officials do not have explicit powers for undercover operations………

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DÉJÀ  VU  ?

Early this year , there was a “ Parliamentary Committee on IT “ ( headed by Shri Anurag Thakur ), which got snubbed repeatedly , by the Social Media giants on the subjects of Fake News / Hate Content etc

Twitter CEO – Jack Dorsey , even refused to meet the Committee !

That prompted me to send following emails to that Committee :

Taxing the Data Thieves ?                                                       [ 04 Mar 2019 ]

What are you waiting for ?                                                       [ 25 Feb 2019 ]

In China : It is “ Comply or Quit “                                             [ 25 Feb 2019 ]

Missing the Jungle for the Tree ?                                              [ 12 Feb 2019 ]

SARAL                                                                                    [ 10 Feb 2019 ]

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[ A ]

Present legal status of pornography in India , as reported in Wikipedia , is :

·         In July 2015 the Supreme Court of India refused to allow the blocking of pornographic websites and said that watching pornography indoors in the privacy of one's own home was not a crime

^·          In February 2016 the Supreme Court asked the Indian Government to suggest ways of banning all forms of child pornography.^[15]

·         In October 2018 the government directed Internet service providers to block 827 websites that host pornographic content following an order by the Uttarakhand High Court

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[ B ]

Is this “ ban / blockage “ working ?

I would say only partially , considering that :

Ø  On the web, there are any number of proxy sites that enable one to bypass this blockage and access those banned sites

If in doubt, just type in Google :

 “ how to bypass blocked websites at school “ ,

to find following number of results / links :

About 15,00,000 results (0.61 seconds)  !

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[ C ]

To Shri Jairam Ramesh ( Chairman- Rajya Sabha Committee ) , I would say, it is time to :

[  Jairam@sansad.nic.in  /  jairam54@gmail.com  ]

Ø  Get IMPATIENT  ( tell the Social Media : Enough is enough ! )

Ø  Study how China regulates its Social Media

[ Regulation of Internet in China : an Explainer  ]

Ø  Study how Russia regulates its Social Media

          [  Russia internet: Law introducing new controls comes into force  ]

 

 

Ø  To hurry up with the implementation of ;

 

          Digital Dividend from Demographic Data                            [ 14 Feb 2019 ]

 

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23 Dec 2019

hcp@recruitGuru.com