The creative case of an IT minister

(An open letter to Mr Kapil Sibal)
Dear Mr Sibal,

Subject: Screening of content on social networking sites

I have been thinking of writing to you ever since I read that article in the newspaper about your proposal of screening ALL content that is posted on social networking sites. But other things have kept me tied up. I was too busy networking online. I hope you will kindly forgive me for the delay. You may have been busy too. There are a lot many things that the government has to bother about. I hope this letter catches the attention of your trained eye after you have dealt with the worries of running a country.

I have also been wondering all this while if you have ever tried to find your long-lost childhood friends on a social networking site... or tried to network with/subscribe/follow the lesser-accessible mortals. Mr Sibal, we netizens actually take pride in poking fun at our friends through random updates. And since we are not celebrities/netas/stars, the media does not turn to us for quotes. Thus, we resort to the universal medium of the Internet to express our views and claim our 10 comments to fame. Trust me, it is not intended to malign anybody’s reputation, not even Soniaji’s.

On behalf of other free-willed and free-to-speak citizens of your country, I would like to ask you: What is it that has invited the wrath of your majesty -- such that the government wants sites to screen and ban posts which could be ‘defamatory/derogatory’? Do you seriously think a post online can induce riots in the real world? Will the government also charge persons over sedition for such posts? We would like to hear from you as to how can screening of content on social networking sites help can prevent such a thing.

That apart, I actually wanted to thank you for a brilliant story idea. This riots-due-to-blog-and-posts would be an interesting plot to a piece of fiction. You know, this pulp fiction is all that sells these days. To tell you a hardly-hidden secret, I am a wannabe writer. Your creative bent of mind has impressed me immensely. What could possibly have been in your mind while you got the idea? Were you thinking of a cyber-riot where people spam each other’s email accounts and pages? Or, were you thinking of people hurling PCs and laptops at each other after a scathing random post? What should be the characterization like? And who should I model the protagonist on? I have had a writer’s block ever since I wrote my first article, so I would reeeeeally, really appreciate if you helped me out on this. A humble request, that is, sir.

And last but not the least, Mr Sibal, I would request you not to break the hearts of millions of young Indians by bringing this ban into the picture. Let us drop our smoke screens and speak freely on the Internet at least.

Regards,
Wannabe Writer

Comments

sampavar said…
Hey nice one Priyanka.
December 11, 2011 at 4:58 AM
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