The government today said it is against controlling the Internet, but want a consensus among stakeholders on how to deal with issues related to the Internet, Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal today said.
Sibal said “there would be no restrictions whatsoever on the use of internet”, however, the stakeholders, should have a consensus so that a clear-cut roadmap could be developed for the sector. "What we want is consensus and not a decision," Sibal said.
The minister said that some aspects of the Internet are completely protected by freedom of speech but some aspects of it may not be protected by free speech.
"Like any other technology any technology that is in human hand can also be misused. The problem here is do we need governance structure in order to deal with that problem or do we need an evolving structure which builds consensus to be able to deal with that issue," Sibal said.
The minister was addressing the curtain raising ceremony of ‘India Internet Governance Conference (IIGC)’ organized by industry body Ficci.
In the last couple of months India had to grapple with a large scale displacement, rumor mongering and hate speech on the internet.
To address the situation government agencies had to block large number of URLs, Twitter accounts, IMG tags, blog posts and websites and bulk SMSes for 15 days.
The government’s move to block websites, Twitter arms and blog posts had not gone down well with a section of the society, who viewed it as violation of the “freedom of speech and expression.”