Bloggers not to be logged out by ban
:SugarwareZ-191:
MUMBAI: Mainstream media (MSM) is often bored with bloggers. So, news of how most blogs suddenly became inaccessible last week due to a government decision to crack down on some specific ones, was initially greeted with fears over the amount of posturing about free speech and bloggers rights that was sure to flood the Net.
The free speech arguments seemed diluted by the ease with which the ban could be circumvented and by the sense that such a sweeping and sudden ban was unlikely to survive a Supreme Court challenge.
The decision pointed to a depressing lack of knowledge of how blogs and the Net operated, which in turn undermined government claims that this was being done to prevent terrorists exchanging information or communally sensitive messages from being posted after the Mumbai blasts. Since the ban was clearly effective in doing neither, what hope was there of the government achieving either goal?
There was also the larger context. Two important projects currently being pushed by the government are the nuclear deal with the US and the Broadcast Bill. The blog ban directly countered both efforts with arbitrary and apparently unaccountable use of power to block a media channel.
While the government now insists it never meant a blanket ban - even issuing show cause notices to the luckless Internet Service Providers for doing so - the ban conti nues on those specific blogs, with no reasons given. “Everyone got agitated because the ban affected their own blogs,” notes journalist Amit Verma, who runs a popular blog. “But what happens in the future when specific blogs get banned without reasons given?” Verma says he accepts, reluctantly, that the government may occasionally need to block information, but this should be done in a defined way, with some judicial involvement.
What seems to stand out is the highly bureaucratic nature of the whole ban and lack of communication across different government departments. Reports over the last week have repeatedly spoken of the weakness of Dr Manmohan Singh’s government and how the Congress is more interested in infighting than governing. The blog ban could be a small confirmation and gloomy sign of more to come.
This is perhaps why some bloggers say they are happy the ban happened. “This was a much needed wake-up call for bloggers,” says Dilip D’Souza, a writer and blogger who admits he’s often been irritated by the short sightedness of bloggers more focused on their computer screens than the world around them.
“This sort of arbitrary use of power happens all the time across the country, but people didn’t bother until it happened to them.” If bloggers were to learn from last weeks’ fracas to look out for other such abuses and to build alliances to counter them, this might turn out to be a ban that wasn’t so bad after all.
MUMBAI: Mainstream media (MSM) is often bored with bloggers. So, news of how most blogs suddenly became inaccessible last week due to a government decision to crack down on some specific ones, was initially greeted with fears over the amount of posturing about free speech and bloggers rights that was sure to flood the Net.
The free speech arguments seemed diluted by the ease with which the ban could be circumvented and by the sense that such a sweeping and sudden ban was unlikely to survive a Supreme Court challenge.
The decision pointed to a depressing lack of knowledge of how blogs and the Net operated, which in turn undermined government claims that this was being done to prevent terrorists exchanging information or communally sensitive messages from being posted after the Mumbai blasts. Since the ban was clearly effective in doing neither, what hope was there of the government achieving either goal?
There was also the larger context. Two important projects currently being pushed by the government are the nuclear deal with the US and the Broadcast Bill. The blog ban directly countered both efforts with arbitrary and apparently unaccountable use of power to block a media channel.
While the government now insists it never meant a blanket ban - even issuing show cause notices to the luckless Internet Service Providers for doing so - the ban conti nues on those specific blogs, with no reasons given. “Everyone got agitated because the ban affected their own blogs,” notes journalist Amit Verma, who runs a popular blog. “But what happens in the future when specific blogs get banned without reasons given?” Verma says he accepts, reluctantly, that the government may occasionally need to block information, but this should be done in a defined way, with some judicial involvement.
What seems to stand out is the highly bureaucratic nature of the whole ban and lack of communication across different government departments. Reports over the last week have repeatedly spoken of the weakness of Dr Manmohan Singh’s government and how the Congress is more interested in infighting than governing. The blog ban could be a small confirmation and gloomy sign of more to come.
This is perhaps why some bloggers say they are happy the ban happened. “This was a much needed wake-up call for bloggers,” says Dilip D’Souza, a writer and blogger who admits he’s often been irritated by the short sightedness of bloggers more focused on their computer screens than the world around them.
“This sort of arbitrary use of power happens all the time across the country, but people didn’t bother until it happened to them.” If bloggers were to learn from last weeks’ fracas to look out for other such abuses and to build alliances to counter them, this might turn out to be a ban that wasn’t so bad after all.
