Cyber satyagraha to nail e-vigil

KOLKATA: First, there was censorship of the cyberspace. And now, there is a call for cyber satyagraha.
Netizens in the city have begun to receive an appeal to join an "electronic civil disobedience movement".
The immediate occasion for the protests is the blocking of Yahoo groups in India, which, the authorities felt, had become a platform for spreading politically sensitive messages.
The users, says the appeal, "should speak up for unfettered communication rights".
It describes the move to block Internet content "a blatant violation of freedom of expression".
This, according to the protesters, "sets a very dangerous precedent on control of the Internet in India".
They even take a dig at the human rights groups in the country, who, according to them, "have still not taken note" of this trend on the part of the state. The appeal chalks out a plan of action for the cyber community. First, they should spread the word around. Then, they are in-vited to start the actual "civil disobedience".
The method is novel. All users are to send at least 10 protest e-mails every day to each of the addresses listed with the message.
The list includes Union communications and information technology minister Arun Shourie, his Cabinet colleague in charge of information and broadcasting Ravi Shankar Prasad, the computer emergency response team and department of telecom of the Central government, Internet Service Providers'' Association of India and the National Human Rights Commission.
How is this going to rattle the powers that be? "If only a few hundred people repeatedly send them 10 blank messages a day, that would help jam their pipes and slow down their mail servers." So effectively, it''s blocking against blocking.
Although that may create a jam in the cyberspace for the authorities, at least it will not violate the Calcutta High Court restric-tions on rallies.
But wait, there''s a second part of the plan. It calls for organising ''flash mobs'' in front of the government offices concerned.
For starters, flash mobs are the latest "fad" in the world by which a large number of people appear at a pre-destined place, make a common utterance or gesture — with or without a cause – and just melt away.
Are the police going to take cognisance of the protests? "Imposing reasonable restrictions on Internet content is within our powers. But for such protests, we have to wait and watch what form they take," Pradip Sanyal, the city police deputy commis-sioner in charge of cyber crimes, told TNN.