Reuters

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google faces a new challenge in India with its social networking site Orkut. There, freedom of speech, a constitutional right, is not completely and literally free, but subject to certain rules that are intended to maintain cultural standards tied to India’s numerous ethnic and religious groups.

“The nation of 1.2 billion is the world’s largest democracy and in principle affords free speech to its citizens. But the country has a volatile mix of religious, ethnic and caste politics and a history of mob violence. So, the government has the authority to curtail speech rights in certain cases. India’s Constitution encapsulates that gray zone: Free speech is subject to ‘reasonable restrictions’ for such purposes as maintaining ‘public order, decency or morality.’” Oftentimes, the robust democratic system leads Indians to violent, chaotic protests in the streets.

How does Google, an American company, know when to remove objectionable material, that could lead to public outcry, from it’s many websites? Their policy is to “review material flagged by Indian users of Orkut and other Web services it owns, such as YouTube…The company pledges to abide by the laws of the countries it operates in. In India, that means making some content inaccessible from the local versions of its sites…” Censorship is not typical of democracy, but the nature of Indian culture influences the strong hierarchy of the country, and the power vested in authorities.

Understanding the vagaries of Indian culture and society is important for businesses operating in the country to comprehend and incorporate into local policy. Are there other areas of the world where social networking websites can potentially endanger public safety as in India, or is this unique? How does this compare to recent elections in Iran and the use of Twitter and Facebook to spread news outside of the country?

Click here to read the article online.

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