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India Tops Net Freedom In Asia, fifth largest in the world after the US, China, Japan and GermanyBy sachiv, Section Computer Gupshup
India's 48 million Internet users the fifth largest in the world after the US, China, Japan and Germany in that order enjoy the most uncontrolled access to most websites available on the Net, unlike any other Asian country So says a recent report brought out by OpenNet Initiative (ONI), a research collaborative of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Toronto.
The report, soon to be released as a book, Access Denied, says even pornography is not censored in India. "Though obscene information is the only type of content to be made negal under the (Indian) IT Act, ONI found no evidence that pornography is filtered in India." Singapore, Thailand, China, Pakistan and Myanmar, the study found, block pornographic content to varying degrees. The report also says there is "no evidence of filtering" of any political and social content. However, there is "selective filtering" of "conflict and security" content and web tools like Internet telephony. While countries like the US and Canada enjoy complete freedom, Asian countries like China, Myanmar and Vietnam indulge in substantive and pervasive filtering in the region with North Korea having one of the most restricted accesses in the world. India is very liberal, alongside Nepal, Afghanistan and Malaysia, according to the report. Click on "Full Story" for more...
"India's attitude towards Internet censorship has always been reactive and not proactive. The freedom is largely due to the democratic tradition of India and strong judiciary India will never go the China way," says Pawan Duggal, Supreme Court advocate and cyber law expert.
ONI research says the Indian government completely depends on the Computer Emergency Response Team - set up in 2003 by the Department of Information Technology under the IT Act to block websites, which in turn depends on Internet service providers (ISPs) to block sites identified by government authorities as relating to national unity and state security. One of the reasons for India's Internet freedom is because there is no uniformity in blocking, as the ISPs react differently says the report. It provides the example of the bombing of suburban trains in Mumbai on July 11, 2006 after which CERT issued a blocking order on 17 websites, which was implemented inconsistently The report observes: "Government attempts at blocking have not been completely effective as the content quickly migrated to other websites and users have found ways to circumvent filtering." "Though India fares well on transparency, it resorts to clumsy ways of blocking websites in the wake of terror attacks, which is an ineffective way to deal with such serious problems," says Ronald Deibert of the University of Toronto. Source: Praveen Donthi From Hindustan Times, Jan-26-2008
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