I go through my Facebook profile
and find hundreds of things which would have been unthinkable to be found on
any public domain that was so much easily accessible some years ago. From derogatory
remarks towards a religion, race and even towards sexes to obscene photographs
and hoaxes, it literally has everything. Sometimes I feel it is like a Pandora’s
Box. All in the name of freedom of expression and I in no way am saying that
freedom of expression is bad or should not be allowed. To me it looks like one
of the life’s most beautiful and at the same time threatening realties.
And then we have the YOUTUBE, The big bad daddy of them all. It’s got all and seems like has more viewers than Rupert Murdoch’s whole empire put together. You can put almost anything there and it doesn’t even have to be sane. And it doesn’t give a damn about the so called censor board. If I was to release an ebook of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses on youtube, the Indian Government won’t be able to do much and I hope someone listens and does that. They can’t trace the user. They can’t implicate youtube directly. The company is based out of US and headquartered in California.
So the question plaguing my mind “Is
the censor board any relevant now?"
I make a movie and they won’t let
me show some footage. Fair enough I cut it and make sure it’s right according
to their standards. It’s released to the public. But I believe in creative
freedom and also believe that the audience has full right to see my work. I release
the edited part on youtube in such a way that it shows it is leaked and not
officially done. There goes the censorship.
I mean these are just two examples. Internet is full of things that lot of people would want to censor, from free porn for all (not that I’m against it) to conspiracy theories to propaganda material. My concern comes when I see that not all minds have grown to take it all in a manner it is supposed to be. It may be because of age, someone’s culture or many other things.
So the old notion of censor has already ended. I believe we need to move one step further, educating masses, killing stereotypes, eradicating superstation, find logic if any for blindly held faiths. Not only this we need to make sure that its literature and art and not extremism which has the superior hand in the society if we dream to have something equivalent of a the ancient Greek society or have another Renaissance, which we badly need.
