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.
The complaint against the blogger was that he ‘deliberately and maliciously’ acted or intended to outrage religious feelings. From what I gather, the ruling was that the Supreme Court decided not to quash the criminal complaint.
In doing so, the Court has stated that the blogger was aware of the ramifications of his actions and has to defend his conduct in the Court. I don’t think there is anything ‘undemocratic’ about this ruling. In fact, the court has provided an opportunity for both the parties to legally resolve a dispute.
Actually, any new technology can have legal, social, and regulatory implications. This incident and ruling is just an example of that. It also ties up with the socio-psychological problem of cyber bullying incidents, that at least Western countries seem to recognize as a growing problem. But don’t know whether this problem is true or just an over-reaction.
There is also the issue in written, spoken communications of ad-hominem styles that can be either innocuous or malafide.