Have been thinking of ways to help GOI achieve what it so desperately seems to want to do - parity with China (China????) in civil liberties (or rather lack of it).As the Hon Delhi High Court recently reminded Facebook , Google ,You tube and the rest of India - absolutely nothing can stop a democratic government from banning platforms which are used/misused in sharing information,disinformation or opinion - Look , lets do it the China way.
Alas, and this is a big ALAS, India has been used to civil liberties for some time now and it will not be easy to push down peoples throat any one group's definition of publicly acceptable discourse,morality and expression.So here is where I come in with a few "helpful " suggestions.
Hmmm, How can the GOI police the 100Mn and growing netizens in the virtual republic???
1.Place the onus of ensuring morally and ethically acceptable content on the search engine, the platform or the website as applicable.They would need to pre screen content - assuming 60% of users upload content on these websites on a regular basis (60Mn hits daily ) I see an employment opportunity for at least 80,000 people ( clearing 94 odd posts every hour for 8 hours a workday). Yoo Hoo please give the govt credit for having thought this one through.
2.Now how do you morally police the morality police? Each of these folks should be provided training and certification by the GOI and anyone failing to clear this shall be deemed morally unfit to don the mantle of moral police.A recertification needs to be provided every year - or five years (leave it to the babus to suggest a suitable time frame ) because Govts and morality can change in that time period.
3.What does any political party (not just Trinamool ) require to be in control of the situation ? Motivated cadres at the grass roots level - which brings me to my next IDEA - dedicated cadres to gather data on what the neighbour is upto,who is being divisive? who says what in private? aka legalised eavesdropping - I see this as the next step once "the powers that be" have controlled the virtual world ( My crystal ball is absolutely clear !!! )
4.My friend suggested this one - what if the really smart guys start using letters and the post office to circumvent the powers? An authorised team of letter openers/readers to sift through content at the local PO.Letters should be posted open, the PO would do the closing for you once they have read through.I smell further opportunities for employment and scams.
5.For content posted outside India - get into convenient bi - lateral agreements with friendly tin pot dictatorships on content removal/punishment of those perceived guilty.As for the intransigent democracies ...well leave that to the Babus as well , with the years of experience they bring in non productive engagement with the not so like minded.
6. Thou has now control of the real and virtual...what about the realm of the sublime , the infinite and the mysterious - the human mind? May have to rely on mind reading ( I do not even know if we can have certified mind readers ) to weed out corrupted souls thinking divisive thoughts.
Are you guys laughing ???? Well laugh on...point one is what the Delhi High Court has just asked the platforms to do. LOL
I have come up with several of these highly creative suggestions on a diet of 3 oranges, 2 slices of bread and 8 glasses of plain water...imagine what our well fed bureaucracy can come up with if given a free reign?
Hmm , Says Mia ,didnt our Nobel laureate say some thing about the land where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way ........
