Despite their obvious attempts to activate communal fault lines on various social media platforms, hardcore Hindutva right-wingers are not known to back up their verbal attacks with physical assault. In that sense, Bajrang Dal activist Bhuvith Shetty, the 24-year-old face behind the Twitter handle @garudapurana, is an exception — he has been vicious online and…
Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik says while he believes that the intentions behind Facebook’s Free Basics are noble, there are obvious concerns around net neutrality and the project doesn’t solve the basic problem of connectivity. “[Free Basics] doesn’t solve the problem of connectivity,” says Pramanik, ostensibly referring to the fact that you need to be…
Facebook went on the offensive Wednesday in an escalating row with Indian authorities over a controversial initiative which the social network says is aimed at widening online access in the developing world. The social media giant took out billboards and full-page newspaper adverts and sent SMSs to defend its Free Basics service, which offers people…
If you log in to Facebook today, among the many notifications you receive, you might see one exhorting you to ‘Act now to save Free Basics in India’. “Instead of giving people access to some basic Internet services for free, they demand that people pay equally to access all Internet services, even if that means…
The number of social media pages blocked by the government for carrying objectionable content rose to 844 till November this year, the Parliament has been informed. Out of the total, the government blocked 492 web pages under Section 69A of Information Technology Act, 2000 based on recommendation of a committee set up in this regard,…
Bangladesh today lifted the ban on all social media platforms including Skype, WhatsApp and Viber, more than three-weeks after it blocked social networking and messaging apps following Supreme Court ruling upholding death penalty of two opposition leaders convicted for war-crimes. “All the social communication media are being unblocked following a government order,” State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim said.…
The gap between the technological haves and have-nots is widening not only between countries but also within the country and those who do not have access to internet risk being marginalised, MP Shashi Tharoor said. “Poverty line is not the only line that the leaders have to think but also the fibre optic line that…
Social Media has transformed the entire world into a global village where people can interact freely with their dear ones located remotely via merely few clicks or taps. While this steeply rising trend has affected all and sundry, its impact on the lives and times of the modern day youth has been maximum. Though a…
SFLC.in participated in a 2 day workshop organized by IT for Change in Bengaluru on the theme of the changing nature of human rights in the digital age. This involved understanding digital rights from a lens beyond that of civil and political rights and to include the social and economic rights in its purview as…
On 1 December, nature decided to drop 30cm of rain in a 24-hour period over Chennai. It was the heaviest downpour Chennai experienced in a century, and the city and its people were haplessly unprepared for the record deluge. I live close to a suburb that has the Tamil word for lake (Eri) in its…