The
Internet should be free of policing and regulation but there should be
an agreed global rules of engagements in this new media space, I&B
Minister Manish Tewari today suggested.
"We do
not believe that there should be a regulation or policing of the
Internet but simultaneously we believe that just as common rules of
engagement have emerged in various spheres, they need to emerge in the
new media space also because it is a virtual civilisation also which has
its own dynamics," he said.
"My personal view
is that it is extremely important that an agreed global rules of
engagement emerge as quickly as possible," he said in his speech on
'freedom of expression in Internet age' at a function here.
According
to him, the rules of engagement are important because hardware
responsible for dissemination of information over the Internet may not
be under the control of a state at whom it is targeted.
He
said this as he noted that though cyber world enables grass-root
democratisation, it is also having the potential of inflicted
destruction.
Tewari highlighted the mass
exodus of people hailing from the northeast from southern states last
year after rumours of attack on them spread like wild fire to drive home
his point.
He also referred to the recent
riots in Muzaffarnagar, stating that a video posted on Youtube had
flared up the entire incident.
"What the
government do when people are fanning violence. Should not the
government have the legal and technological way to stop such activity,"
he sought to know.
Tewari said the time is ripe to distinguish between right to privacy and right to anonymity.
He felt that the difficulty in policing freedom of speech and expression is where to draw the line.
"The
dilemma is should freedom of speech or expression be policed at all.
But juxtaposed with that is also the reality that freedom of speech is
an expression at times can create situation which lead to potential law
and order issues where state and law machineries need to step in," he
said.
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