Information Madness

Why is the internet of the future going to be radically different? Just a week before the Megaupload founder, Kim Dotcom was arrested in New Zealand, a court in the United Kingdom had passed judgment on an extradition case on charges of criminal copyright infringement. The case was against a site called TVShack.

The internet as a place where anything could be said, read or downloaded will not remain forever. This freedom is unlikely to remain unrestricted. The controls and curbs are likely to increase.  There are two forces driving this change. There is a shift in the way we use the internet now compared to how we did it a decade back. Secondly, the regulators are getting more determined to close the gap between the online and offline worlds and to check on the objectionable content online.

The internet is accessed through certain channels, however decentralized it may be. You have to go through your internet service provider to get to any website. There are intermediaries as well. Facebook, for example, does not generate any content of its own but is still an intermediary. Everything on Facebook is provided by its users. It is the same with Google Plus, YouTube and Twitter.  These neutral intermediaries have become the new targets for internet regulation. Google has openly opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The attempt to bridge the difference between offline and online worlds has taken a dramatic turn with the Indian government introducing new rules. The rules have mandated the intermediaries to sign new agreements with users, restricting the users from publishing anything online that is harmful and disparaging.  The impact of the IT rules is that they effectively are making the intermediary a censor of content.