[governance] Content filtering and jurisdiction of cyberspace

[Faisal Hasan]

Dear Friends,

Bangladesh Govt. plans to filter internet contents. We know that this
option of filtering is not a solution, instead efforts must be taken to
remove content from the source. The move actually stemmed from Google’s
refusal to take down the trailer of a religiously sensitive film from its
website Youtube.com. Bangladesh even asked Google to install a mirror
server for Bangladesh nine months ago so that such videos could be filtered
out. Youtube is still blocked in Bangladesh since last September.  Recently,
in Bangladesh the Internet has become a double edged sword which is used
not only by activists to raise voice for legitimate reasons but also by
some bad politicians to provoke innocent people to create deadly violence. We
have already have had 'our spring' last February. Clearly, the government
is in a dire situation.

From our chapter we are initiating a dialogue with the government in two
weeks time. We would like to get your inputs about this issue. I know many
govts have implemented filtering like this and all most all the report I
have seen suggest that this does more harm than good for the people. The
situation in a country like Bangladesh deserves special care as there are
millions of people here who donot have basic education and are easily
agitated by inappropriate/fake content. To give you an idea about the
seriousness of the issue, I would say that in a single day in February 40
people were dead!

Please let us know what you think can be done? What is the alternative?
Does global companies have more responsibility in making their policies
such that it takes care about issues in developing countries?

Thanks
Faisal Hasan, PhD
Internet Society Bangladesh Dhaka Chapter
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20130531/00501b08/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t