Internet Freedom & Restriction -India My Entry to the Upmewhale writing contest
Internet has been a life- changer. More so when the tech that supports it is becoming cheaper and it's reach will soon encompass the globe. The surprising instances of "The Net Effect" from the Arab Spring to Chinese cyber underground to the Crypto currency debate in Venezuela are for everyone to see. BUT Why would the powers that be let Internet remain unregulated?
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Politicians, or people in power generally are averse to unregulated ways of communication, even within the country of residence. There have been numerous instances of illegal phone tapping and surveillance all over the world. So why should the "Information Super Highway" we call Internet be treated differently? The unique thing about the Internet is that it is impossible to contain it 100%. Governments like China may ban and block the access to all but specified pages but even after spending billions and putting in thousands of man hours they do not even claim to be 100% successful. But as in everything else , some countries are more equal than others, when it comes to Internet freedom.
- This is a grab from the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship It lists many countries as Current Enemies of the Internet including India- which I am writing about.
India is still grappling with the vastness and trans-border nature of the Internet. So the laws are catching up to the new reality. That said, the Indian government in its earnestness to weed out malicious content has cast aside the concept of individual privacy in favor of the Big Brother Net. In the words of Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director of Human Rights Watch- "the move toward extensive "surveillance capabilities enabled by digital communications" suggests that governments are now "casting the net wide, enabling intrusions into private lives". Ganguly also felt that increasing surveillance around the world was an attempt by governments to "grapple with the power of social media that can enable spontaneous street protests." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Monitoring_System
Indians may do well to be vary ALL THE TIME they are connected. Be it your laptop, desktop or phone. This "security measure" is only one of the several steps the government has taken to curtail/ monitor Internet usage; like the one which has captured some media attention- Internet/ mobile telephony blackouts. This is the first sentence of an article in the TribuneIndia dated 6th November 2019, on the now 100 day ban of Internet in Kashmir-India- "Shutting down mobile, landline and Internet services for 90 days in Jammu and Kashmir was “by no means a temporary measure” following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court was told on Wednesday."
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Yes! 90 days WITHOUT Internet AND Telephony except a handful of landlines, mostly at places like important government offices or OB vans or Media Facilitation Centers. And this is not the first time Internet has been shut down in India. Albeit there are numerous instances when the blackout has helped squash riots and spread of panic. Is it not common sense to use such a powerful instrument with great care? Considering the infringement of personal well being of every citizen, Internet Blackouts should never be punitive or hastily done. Also the more transparent the workings of the departments enforcing these blackouts the better. Consider this number- 278; According to the site internetshutdowns.in there have been 278 internet shutdowns between Jan' 2012 and Jan' 2019. And in most cases official papers regarding authorization and implementation of the shutdown are not made public.
So after Big Brother Net and Internet blackouts let's see how Net Neutrality is doing in India. Well the situation in mobile data sector nicely sums up the state of the nation. Jio a mobile telephony and Internet provider has 355million subscribers and this is the news about it reported on india.com "Reliance Jio Accused of Blocking VPN-Proxy Sites, Sparks Net Neutrality Concerns. As per the Indian law, proxy sites and VPNs are not illegal".
Many government organizations and even social Institutions regularly pester social media companies like Youtube, Twitter and Whastapp to censor posts and more often than not, the media companies oblige. Add to all this mess the Indian netizen, especially the one with only his mobile as the prime source of all data, had to face the bias created by Google Android- with Google Chrome as the built-in lowest bandwidth consuming tool used by more than 90% of the mobile users. Google uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to virtually preempt a query and surface a result. Naturally it knows much about you, more than enough to pinpoint the type of source you are likely to click more on. This could mean results are prioritized and not actually neutral.
India, like many other countries has yet to accept that the Internet is a different type of Genie, altogether more powerful and sneaky than anything before it. And the bottle has been broken, now whatever you do, there is no going back to controlled media. There are millions of Citizen-Journalists armed with camera phones out there. Everyday the number of young people becoming proficient in the ins and outs of avoiding surveillance is on the rise. If anything, the Internet is making the world democratic even faced with the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google.
Being on the blockchain is another great way to flip your finger at the Internet giants who are not willing to listen to the increasingly educated netizens. Read this article for a better perspective: How blockchain will disrupt Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook
Incidentally Google is working on its own blockchain. But I have faith in the Internet, rather in the millions of netizens contributing to this super network ever minute of every day. Remember Netscape Navigator- It was a revolutionary browser which became a clear favorite when still in beta. And a decade later it was nowhere. (That is why you don't remember it. It was way back in 1995)-
Broad transparent and simple guidelines can govern most of the net. Places of porn or gambling have to be more strictly regulated to keep the under-aged children away. That's about it!
There is another matter altogether which in the near future will likely affect our world. Artificial Intelligence [AI]- Huge computers mimicking human thought and processing Zillions of Gigabytes every minute are here and they are only getting more powerful and more prevalent; and they keep gathering data on EVERYTHING including YOU and ME. From electricity grids to traffic lights, from nuclear plants to household solar panels, from the weather satellites to the military intelligence- AIs are becoming more and more common. And they are more efficient and precise So we may have to think up laws to keep humans away from the data they gather every moment.
Let us survive the present first. Our legacy should not be virtual police states disguised as democratic governments supported by the billionaires. That is where we are and we need to ACT; move to platforms like STEEMIT and search engines like duckduckgo and browsers like Firefox as the first step. It is small but ... Every Oak was once a tiny nut.
- www.e-education.psu.edu/geog479/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.geog479/files/Figure%203.png
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Whether pre- or post Internet. There are always activities and decisions on the part of governments that interfere with the press and free speech. This will not change and in such huge civilizations as we have today, everything a government does is fed into pro and contra debate by sections of the population.
It is only as good as impossible to keep personal opinions out of the public sphere, because the Internet is a very badly regulable space. Turning it off is probably only possible in countries like India, where, I conclude, the economic and social damage it causes is believed by decision-makers to be able to be dealt with. But it is rather a self-boycott of the rulers, which is psychologically interesting, because if you previously thought that there could be unrest in the population and you could prevent it by shutting down the networks, you will get exactly what you feared afterwards. Anyone who has not been interested in network policy in India so far will do so now at the latest and take action. There has already been a ruling by the Supreme Court in India, which has included the right to privacy in the law at all, as this right was not previously laid down.
The irony is that, if there had been no network shutdown to this extent, who knows if and when a law of this kind would have been introduced? It is a fact that countries such as India do not yet have the standard of European customs, for example. Whether a country opens itself to democratic principles is never entirely certain, but the economic drivers are so great, trade and mobility so global, that a country will sooner or later be unable to afford to shut down its network unless it wants to go under in competition.
Here in Germany, for example, the government is also expected to influence movements such as those of the Nazis or the very right-wing or left-wing scene. It is a tightrope walk between censorship and freedom and it will never be easy. We Germans know how sensitive the issue of freedom of expression is, but freedom is never one hundred percent and it can be a short way between ban and criticism as well as between free speech and riot.
Ultimately, it is self-censorship and what I carry into the world as someone who expresses his views. I think I say as much as necessary and as little as possible to generate excitement. Rather, I always have to ask myself: If I want to have an open debate, then I should accept opinions that do not correspond to my own. The fact that some governments believe that their own citizens are not capable of self-censorship is certainly true. It is to be hoped that, over time, both the government and the people will learn from their mistakes and good practices.
You are right on the money. Self-regulation is the ideal way. but then the powerful people are too insecure to trust the general populace to act intelligently.
A sad reality is that we are saddled with mediocre if not corrupt leaders. And the 1% of the worlds population who has all the money and reach are backing them. Nobody cares if thousands die or suffer or even if Earth itself is irreversibly damaged. We, every human who wants the next generation to live better circumstances than us, have a fight on our hands.
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How many people in India can set up a peer to peer ad-hoc connection from computer to computer as a way rewire Internet to get around alleged and partial Internet Kill Switches? It can be done. It just takes a lot of time and work and many things. But they can have Internet in India and in many countries. There are different ways to do it. Blockchain, P2P, etc, can help.
OK @joeyarnoldvn many thanks for your support. I know there may be ways around restrictions but exactly how.. now that's the trouble. I don't know what an ad-hoc peer to peer connection is and how to make it And I am on the net every day for Hours.
Keep Steemin and Support freedom.