NEW DELHI: At this Internet cafe just off Connaught Place in the center of India's capital, New Delhi, young university students work feverishly at the keyboard, typing away. Much of their efforts are written in messages no longer than 140 characters for the micro-blogging site Twitter. They feel connected, the young students say, ready for the new school year to begin. “I find it great to be able to read news, see what my friends are doing and just being connected in real time,” Rajesh Tinarvni told Bikyamasr.com. But his fears over the recent reports of government censorship and cracking down on Twitter have him and others worried. “Certainly, there is a lot of worry over what we will be allowed to do online and even rumors that Twitter could be banned in India,” he added. The young political science student might be more right than he realizes, after the government here said they were looking into legal action against the popular site if it fails to comply to the government's demand to censor content New Delhi feels is “objectionable.” After a string of misinformation campaigns hit social media websites recently relating to the conflict in the Northeast states, the government appears ready to move on the micro-blogging site to continue to increase its grip on social media in the country. A senior government official was reported by Times of India as saying that Twitter was told it would face legal action if it “failed to cooperate with the Indian government in its efforts to find the source of and curtail the inflammatory messages against northeast citizens.” Hate content has already been confirmed by Facebook and Youtube to have originated in Pakistan, but they said they could not move against the posters. Both Google, the owner of Youtube, and Facebook have offices in India, which has made working with the government much easier. Still, Twitter has partly refused to respond to India's requests, and because of its anti-censorship policies. Telecom officials were quoted by TOI of saying that if they do not receive a response from the American-based company it would take “whatever action is necessary to address the problem.” But the issue has raised concerns that the Indian government could be seeking to over step its boundaries, with IT and social media experts in New Delhi telling Bikyamasr.com that the government should work with, not against, companies to end hate speech online. “If they take legal action against Twitter it could result in a backlash they don't want. Twitter is open source and it would be extremely hard to ban it in India, not to mention the repercussions it would have on the IT world here,” said one telecom official. For now, the battle is only in the beginning, but for university students like those at the Internet cafe here in the city, the fear of censorship appears to be growing.
