Freedom of Speech : Indian Supreme Court
An interesting thing happened yesterday. Supreme Court of India said that content on a blog is your responsibility. And the disclaimer “views expressed on the blog are that of the writers” will not help you at all. Here is the news link. This happened after someone started an orkut community against Shiv Sena. And of course, content became vulgar. Those who don’t know, Shiv Sena is a group of extremist Hindus. I think they usually are bad in expressing their views, which usually involves violence. But anyways, this raises the question of Freedom of Speech. Does it snatch that freedom? If it does, is that right?
Few months back, there was an arrest. The guy made an Orkut community “I hate Sonia Gandhi”. And posted some vulgars comments as well. Here is the news link. Now, I hate Sonia Gandhi as well, and it seems Police and court accepted that its fine to hate Sonia Gandhi, and its fine to even write that. But writing opinions in vulgar language was not accepted. And hence the guy was arrested. (on a side note, google gave information about the guy to the police). Those who don’t know, Sonia Gandhi is Congress President. Congress is the ruling party in India right now. Sonia Gandhi, according to me, is dumb. I don’t think she knows anything about India.
So, the question is, is it really against the fundamental rights of expression and speech? It might be interesting to note that anti-campaigning in India is not allowed. Which means that to promote your product, you can not say that other products are bad. And to promote your party in elections, you can not say other parties are bad. Those who don’t know, in US you can do anti-campaigning. Now, I am not sure what is right. Should vulgar language be allowed in public? If yes, then of course it should be allowed on web as well. If not, it shouldn’t be allowed on web as well. And visa-versa.
I don’t think I like the concept of anti-campaigning. And I don’t think I like the concept of vulgar language in public places. Internet has become very important and very used part of communication system. And so, the etiquettes we teach the children and expect from people in general should be applicable on web as well. Why is it that a guy should be allowed to use vulgar language on web, but not in public places? (socially and legally both)