WTF Series: Episode 05: "Regulating" Social Media

[My sincere gratitude to Kapil Sibal for helping me revive the WTF series - I seriously was running out of steam, given the constant racket happening in the governing of the country.]

So, Mr. Sibal wants to "pre-screen" content posted in any social media - Twitter, Facebook, the almost obliterated Orkut, Blogosphere, and, I am told even from Google Search Results. All because offensive content was found on THE madam in one of these sites - I did not see any protests from the 'citizens of India whose interests Kapil Sibal wants to protect by censoring web content. Did you?

Forget our right to freedom of expression, forget the technological issues in pre-screening millions and millions of status updates, posts, tweets by the second, and forget the legal meanings of sweeping terms like "defamatory", "hateful", and the likes - if the Minister of Communication wants to scrutinize the thoughts of the people even before they are formulated or expressed, he must be given the ways and the means to do it - install every browser with mind reading software - and till such a software can be developed, employ all the wall street protesters, and the so many educated yet unemployed people as scanners!

And what should be scanned - Everything - hate speech against any politician or his/her relative, dog, friend; and any cartoon that portrays any person living or dead. Why only politicians? School principals, teachers, professors, bosses - everybody should be protected. No person has the right to say my boss is an idiot because it may hurt the sentiments of all his near and dear ones. 

Also, what about the emotions of the poor filmmakers and the cast - don't people from the entertainment business deserve respect. If you do not like a movie - please say so politely in 140 characters - absolutely no need for four or five letter superlatives.

If any user wants to post any comment, status or blog update about any person, he/she should contact him/her personally, get a no objection certificate signed on a stamp paper, and then post the scanned image of this certificate along with the post. And should you want to make a general observation or comment, please contact Mr. Sibal for such a certificate. He knows best. By the way, your sovereign right to freedom of expression, will be duly upheld and honored.

And, while at it, please factor in concerns of the RSS and the likes - no woman should be allowed to post her picture with a guy, unless she has him listed as a brother or her relationship status is 'married'. Specifically, the guy in question - brother or husband - should be tagged. Pictures with fiances are allowed only if parents are also tagged in the same picture. An algorithm based on the appropriateness of the dress worn based on the citizenship of the girl should be developed, so that as the picture is being uploaded it can be marked as 'abuse'. Atleast her 500 friends will be saved of harassment they would feel at seeing her dressed like that.

It need not be spelt out that pictures showing people smoking or drinking are not to be allowed because these incite the friends into indulging in these bad habits themselves, hence sending down wrong signals to this impressionable generation. 

Every conversation between a girl and boy who are not related by blood or marriage, as per the information available in their accounts, should be scanned before it is published. Preferably, an alert could go to the parents and the families of the people involved.

After all, the government of India must partner with the service providers to do everything they can to preserve the moral fiber of our society. 

Seriously, WTF!