India’s Supreme Court has passed a verdict that could mean the end of mud-slinging and abusive posts in cyberspace. Bloggers can’t let their tongues wag anymore without thinking about the public correctness of their posts. In short, you can’t call anyone names uninhibitedly and get away with it.

Though the ruling comes from a 19-year-old Kerala boy’s ramblings against a Hindutva body on a social networking site, it has wide-ranging ramifications for those of us who own blogs in India. The Supreme court has ruled that if posts are found to be offensive or in bad taste, the blog owners could face libel and even prosecution for the blog content. This means blog owners will also have to think ten times before approving a comment to appear on their blog.

Interestingly many blog postings are already calling the verdict ‘draconian’, ‘outrageous’ and ‘undemocratic’. It remains to be seen how effective the ruling will be in the face of rampant misuse of the cyberspace despite cyber regulations already prohibiting offensive postings on the internet.