Pune, India: The ministry of communications and information technology has proposed a new bill that would govern the behaviour of Facebook users. With Facebook occupying an increasingly significant role in our everyday lives, cyber regulation is becoming more important than ever.
"Absence of regulation leads to undesirable behaviour" said Kapil Sibal, minister for communications & IT. "Hence it is very important to monitor the online behaviour of Indians, especially of those under 25. The status messages, photos, liking, sharing patterns etc would be closely scrutinised. For instance, under the new bill, using 'ma' instead of 'my' would be a punishable offence. People having status messages like 'am driving ma i10 with ma dog, ma and mama' would attract a penalty of Rs.2000 or a prison sentence of upto 1 month or both. People are under the illusion that using 'ma' instead of 'my' is cool and fashionable. It is just meaningless, absurd and an unhealthy behaviour."he added.
There are many provisions in the new bill which have been described as draconian by Facebook activists. For eg:- According to one of the provisions of the proposed bill, displaying frivolous status messages too often like 'on ma way to the toilet', 'attending nature's call', 'nature gave a missed call' etc can attract a penalty of Rs.1500. Liking one's own status message is also a cognisable offence. So, if you update your status message to 'Bored :( :( :(' and like it, an FIR could be filed against you. Liking a girl's status message without proper justification could lead to a sentence of 1 year as it amounts to 'culpable liking not amounting to voyeur'. Kapil Sibal added: "The Pak foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar had updated her status message, a few hours back, to 'Damn tired', which attracted 174 likes and 100+ comments most of them from Indians like N.D.Tiwari, S.M.Krishna, Virat Kohli, Swami Nithyananda,Yuvraj Singh etc. This is an offence according to the proposed bill."
Discrimination based on gender while liking status messages, photos etc is also a punishable offence. The government has also planned to approach Facebook with a request to cap the number of likes that a girl gets for her status message to 5% of her number of friends. For eg: A girl with 500 friends cannot get more than 25 likes for her status message. Also any girl who gets less than 1% likes would be recognized as socially poor and would be eligible for below poverty line benefits. Another clause in the bill specifies that a boy commenting "awwww choooo cuteeee" when a girl uploads a pic with a puppy or a kitten can lead to 3 months imprisonment while sending a friend request to any female can attract huge fine up to Rs. 1000 or imprisonment up to 1 month.
Pushing aside arguments from critics that these provisions infringe upon the right to freedom of speech and expression, Kapil Sibal said: "What nonsense? You cannot do anything in the name of freedom of speech. Online behaviour has to be regulated. Voyeur is voyeur, regardless of whether you follow a girl physically or on twitter. So even following a girl on twitter is punishable."
