Tuesday, December 06, 2011

You Just Got Censored


Foreword:Read this quickly.No telling when the censor guys come around and censor the sense out of this little ol' post.

So the entire internet community is in an uproar over Kapil Sibal’s attempt to censor material on certain sites on the internet.And can you blame them?The internet is supposed to be free.No not THAT free-that’s illegal and called piracy,shame on you if you indulge in it.By free I mean the freedom of speech-the freedom to call someone a douche bag sitting in your dark basement room trying to sound badass and dissing movies on message boards.Yes I know you also use the internet to search for erotica-shame on you again.Point is the internet allows you freedom real life doesn’t.So naturally censoring the internet WILL cause an uproar.People will be angry.But from experience and history we know that people are as often right as they are wrong.So let’s analyze this a bit.

Does the internet need a guardian?That’s the first question.I would say yes it does.We all know of cyber frauds,cyber crimes,etc.So yes it does need a guardian.Next question-does content on the internet need to be censored?Suprising though it may seem,the answer is YES IT DOES.The most obvious question which arises next is why?Well for many reasons-For example,suppose someone uploads a formula for making bombs,suppose some fundamentalist is spreading his warped twisted theories and brainwashing young people.There can be various other reasons but I think we have established the fact that yes often content on the internet needs to be censored.For the greater good (Winks).

Now comes the question-is the Indian government right in censoring material on the internet?My first reaction is that it depends-if he’s going to censor what some teenager writes on Facebook then it’s absolutely pointless.Yeah many people may abuse politicians on the internet but it’s not causing them any harm is it?Cricketers and filmstars have been getting this hatred for ages-the fanboys of two rival superstars in India are always at loggerheads and abusing the holy hell out of each other.So this basically seems kinda pointless if not downright petty and fascist.However if this censorship is used to censor some bank robber somewhere from planning a bank robbery with his fellow robbers on Facebook or something like that then I guess it’s useful.The last line sounds mindblowingly stupid no?That’s because it is.

In the end I would have to say I don’t know if Mr Sibal has any hidden agendas or motives (he’s a clever man no doubt) behind this,but I’d have to say up front this sounds a really bad idea-one which has expectedly not found close to as much love among the internet community as Kolaveri Di.