Speak up for freedom

The Union minister for communications and information technology, Kapil Sibal, is a knowledgeable lawyer, and someone who is reportedly committed to the freedom of speech. He would not lightly propose regulations that contravene Article 19(1)(a) (freedom of speech and expression) of our Constitution. So how is one to explain his recent proposals on controlling online speech? Or even the immoderate IT Rules that have been in force since April? This controversy exploded when The New York Times revealed, on Monday, that Sibal and his ministry had been in touch with Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, asking them to manually filter user-generated content before it is published, to ensure that objectionable speech is screened out. 

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