There was a short segment on India This Week on NDTV's 24/7 on Sunday which briefly touched upon the controversy surrounding the issuing of a notice by the State Government of Maharashta against an Orkut community. It wasn't much of an analysis as I had expected - some Orkut members talking of how and why they use it - too short a segment for anyone to really comprehend what was going on. I told my mum to watch it since I was appearing briefly .. her response after ... "I didn't understand a word!". So much for mainstream media picking up on issues!

What makes me a little mad is this writeup on the segment where they've quoted me as having said:

""Instead of paranoia, we need greater awareness for young people, and more effective legal measures for cyber crime," said Dina Mehta, new media researcher."

When actually, I said quite the contrary .. I spoke about what social networks are, a bit on how they have evolved, why folks use them and what value they bring, and on the the issue of 'moral policing' and banning communities. My take was very clearly that usually, these communities are self-correcting and you have the choice to select who you want to interact with, and what community you wish to take part in. If something or someone upsets you, you can counter it by debate and dialogue or report them in most of these communities, some have recommendations and user-ranking systems as well, and in that, they are self-correcting. So there is no need to police them -  how can you - are we policed thus in our physical worlds?

Moreover, the powers that issue these orders are naive to think that closing down a community will shut down voices on the internet.... they will spring up elsewhere on the web. If we are talking of moving to a networked world, with broadband plans and bringing access to the internet to many more people, how can we talk of this sort of censorship. My final comment was that those with authority to ban and censor have no understanding of how social the internet has become. They need to get in there, wet their hands, play .. only then can they truly understand how these newer social systems and norms of engagement actually work. Action then will be more informed as a result.

A no-brainer really.

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