To Kapil Sibal – Could You Please Define The Term 'Censorship'?

Kapil insists that the government is NOT asking for censorship. Let's just take a look at what has been reported so far:

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"I suggested that these platforms should evolve a mechanism on their own to ensure that such contents are removed as soon as they get to know of it... I have told them that this cannot go on," he said at a press conference in Delhi.

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The Indian government has asked Internet companies and social media sites like Facebook to prescreen user content from India and to remove disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content before it goes online, three executives in the information technology industry say.

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• Someone posts a comment.
• This comment will be screened (Kapil wants the social networking sites to employ personnel to monitor the content round the clock).
• If the comment is deemed offensive / inflammatory / disparaging / defamatory, then it must be removed.

So you do want censorship - but instead of blocking/banning the site yourself, you want the site owner/administrator to do the censoring of the comment(s) that YOU find offensive.

Dress it up however you want, this IS censorship. Don't believe me? Here is the definition:

cen·sor·ship/ˈsensərˌSHip/ Noun: The practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts.

Unless you intend to have the meaning of the term altered, it would be advisable to keep your mouth shut. The only thing you have managed to accomplish so far is generating even more negative comments - for yourself and your party - on the web.