India: Restricted Internet Speech

India's Department of Information and Technology has placed new harsh restrictions on Internet content. The list of objectionable content includes anything that “threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states or public order.”

This is a frightening thing that could lead to blind nationalism of a whole new sort. People must be able to openly criticize and discuss issues without being regulated and watched.

Even worse, Sunil Abraham, the executive director for the Center for Internet and Society, states that; “whenever there are limits of freedom of expression, in order for those limits to be considered constitutionally valid, those limits have to be clear and not be very vague. Many of these rules that seek to place limits are very, very vague.”