The free circulation of vulgar contents will soon come to an end. Here is the reason as to why it is so.
The government is ordering top internet giants and social media companies such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, Microsoft, Twitter and WhatsApp to crack down on objectionable content regarding child pornography, rape and gang-rape being widely shared on the internet.
It has been decided to focus on vernacular languages for checking the uploading and misuse of such content, and many Indian languages will come under surveillance, top sources told TOI.
The government has asked the companies to become “more proactive”. This follows the Supreme Court expressing concern on such content following a petition filed by NGO Prajwala.
The government wants to take “serious action” on the issue of child porn and rape videos circulating freely on the internet.
“Companies are currently following a ‘reporting’ system, where an action is taken after it has been reported and thereafter verified to be true. The government is not happy with this approach as it is more reactive, and not proactive,” a source said. “We want them to accelerate research on this so that in future, it can be detected instantly and can be prevented at the time of the first instance of uploading.”
Among the various measures that have been agreed upon by a high-level committee, that included senior officials from the IT and Home Ministries and representatives from Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, and WhatsApp, it has been decided to expand the list of ‘keywords’ related to child pornography.
“Importantly, it has been agreed upon that the key-words directory should also be created for rape and gang-rape instances/content. Also, the keywords will have to be created in vernacular languages and civil society representatives will be involved in their identification,” the source said.
The government will also create a “hash bank” that will basically be an encrypted diary of such images and content. “If the same image is uploaded somewhere using some other website, the computer/software can be immediately alerted to it using the hash bank. It can be immediately blocked.”
Countries such as the US and UK already maintain such hash banks, but India does not have one.
The source said that India will create a “centralized reporting mechanism” – or a hotline portal – where people can report such content. The US has an organization, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which is tasked with handling such matters and their reporting.
Speaking about the sharing of content on WhatsApp, the source said the company will be asked to “make further improvement” in its reporting processes. Also, the government has asked WhatsApp to look into ways by which it can block not only the user sending the content but also others who may have shared it but haven’t been reported.
The government is also considering the use of new-age technologies like artificial intelligence, deep learning, and machine learning to identify objectionable content. “PhotoDNA, video-hashing and other such technologies can be used when it comes to imagery. Also, there is a need for more collaborative work between the various companies on such technologies.”
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