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| Omar justifies curbs on Internet | | ‘Freedom of speech does not cover spreading rumours’ | | ET Plus Report
NEW DELHI, Mar 21: Admitting that the Government shortened the bandwidth of internet following execution of Parliament attack convict, Afzal Guru, the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today said spreading rumours on social media does not come under the purview of freedom of speech. He was speaking on `Pros and cons of tweets' jointly organized by Google and NDTV at New Delhi.
Omar said the micro-blogging site was not an accurate indicator of what people are thinking. "It cannot be used to gauge the mood of the people", he said. On use of social media after Guru execution, Omar said "No sooner had he (Afzal) been executed, we started seeing rumours on social media that his mother died because of shock and you saw people coming out to protest his mother's death, which had not happened.
"So, we ask service providers like Google and others to block sites and other things. It's not an easy call to make for somebody who uses social media to get his messages across and then turn around and ask for blocking it," he said. Omar, who was flanked by Union Minister Shashi Tharoor and campaign manager for US President Barack Obama, Stephanie Cutter, said it created a "huge problem for us in drawing a fine line between free speech and something that can be hugely problematic".
Omar said in a volatile society like Jammu and Kashmir, it was difficult to counter `bad information' with good information. "While I organize for good information, I could have people dead on account of bad information", he said.
He cited another example of misuse of social site in 2010, and said there was a video showing that a pastor burnt down a scripture in the US. "Sixteen people died on the streets while protesting the act. How can I sit back and wait for somebody to correct the information."
He said that putting a picture of Afzal Guru as display picture on twitter or Facebook was not problematic. "The problem starts when the social media is used for spreading rumours and to provoke crowds." |
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