It’s about government outreach, not net censorship: Sibal
16 Dec 2011
Union communication and information minister today continued to try and defuse the storm of criticism after he asked social networking sites to monitor their content and remove objectionable material.
"We're looking at ways in which the government can use the internet to reach out to the common man," Sibal said.
Department of information technology secretary R Chandrashekhar said, "It is not about web censorship. It is about government outreaching to the people."
These statements came after the government held talks on Thursday with Google, Facebook and Twitter representatives.
The government sought their opinion on effective use of their platforms but asserted there was no question of censorship of internet, telecom minister Kapil Sibal said after the meeting.
Asked if any mechanism to regulate internet content was on the anvil, minister of state for communications and information technology, who also attended the meeting along with Chandrashekhar, said, ''There is no question of censorship of the internet ... whatever laws have to be made are already in place. The government is committed to abiding by what is there according to the Constitution ... which is freedom of speech and expression. We protect that with a lot of energy.''
