<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"The Indian government has denied that it is heading down a path that will see it block Facebook, Google and other Internet companies, as part of an ongoing legal dispute concerning the removal of unsuitable content from the Web.\r\n\r\nMilind Deora, who is India's minister of state for communications and information technology, today revealed that the government doesn't want to block the sites or censor media, that's despite a Delhi court warning Web companies that they would face\u00A0Chinese-style censorship.\r\n\r\nDeora told\u00A0the Wall Street Journal\u00A0India Real Time blog:\r\nWe don\u2019t want to get into the business of censoring any media \u2013 we can\u2019t do it, and we don\u2019t want to. No one is saying we\u2019re going to shut any of these companies down.\r\nDeora further clarified that the government is looking to develop a system that will allow Indian Internet users to remove content online that they feel is in breach of Indian laws or is obscene of objectionable.\r\n\r\nActing telecom minister Kapil Sibal has been at the centre of proceedings since they kicked off in November, when the\u00A0New York Times claimed\u00A0that the government was seeking to pre-screen Internet content published to Google, Facebook and other sites.\r\n\r\nSibal, who\u00A0refuted the report, claimed himself that the government is working to develop a new approach\u00A0to handle the issue as India\u2019s legal system is not suitably empowered to do so. Nonetheless a private lawsuit \u2014 submitted by an Indian tech journalist \u2014 is under way with Facebook and Google both accused of circulating \u201Cobscene, lascivious content\u201Dunder three sections of the Indian penal code.\r\n\r\nPreviously, Sibal suggested that the Indian government would work with Internet firms directly to solve the issue \u2014 after Google and Facebook both\u00A0claimed\u00A0that their existing content management system were adequate enough \u2014 but it remains how this will develop with both Facebook and Google continually opposing the requests, which they labelled &amp;quot;infeasible&amp;quot;.\r\n\r\nThe government has now thrown yet more confusion into the foray with the claim that it is not looking to shut down the sites. That threat had appeared to be its main tactic to force Facebook and others into adopting new processes, and now it remains to be seen how things will develop.\r\n\r\n[Image via Flickr user pshab]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/in/2012/01/25/indias-government-refutes-claims-it-wants-to-adopt-chinese-style-web-censorship/>