India Muslims force removal of “objectionable” content from Google, Blocked from India search results, Muslims 13 percent of India population

“Winston dialed “back numbers” on the telescreen and called
for the appropriate issues of the Times, which slid out of
the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes’ delay. The
messages he had received referred to articles or news items
which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to
alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify. For
example, it appeared from the Times of the seventeenth of
March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day,
had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet
but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in
North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command
had launched its offensive in South India and left North
Africa alone. It was therefore necessary to rewrite a
paragraph of Big Brother’s speech in such a way as to make
him predict the thing that had actually happened.”…George Orwell, “1984”

“To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is
free, when men are different from one another and do not
live alone–to a time when truth exists and what is done
cannot be undone:

From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude,
from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink–
greetings!”…George Orwell, “1984″

Big Brother lives.

From Bloomberg February 7, 2012.

“Google Removes India Content on Court Order”

“India had about 89 million people using the Web at the end of 2010, compared with more than 450 million in China, the world’s largest Internet market, according to the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva. Photographer: Pankaj Nangia/Bloomberg
Google Inc. removed content from its India domains that was deemed objectionable by a New Delhi district court after a civil lawsuit against the owner of the world’s largest search engine.

The material was blocked from India search results, YouTube, Blogger and the social-networking site Orkut, said Gaurav Bhaskar, a spokesman for Google India. The content was deleted from domains .in and .co.in, while remaining accessible from other countries, Bhaskar said today. Google can’t take down content that appears on websites owned by other companies and individuals, he said.

India is stepping up scrutiny of Internet postings and mobile communications as it tries to eliminate provocative comments and curb discord between religious groups. The Hindu- majority South Asian country is home to more than 138 million Muslims, comprising about 13 percent of the world’s second- largest population.”
“The order follows a civil complaint filed by Mufti Aijaz Arshad Quasmi, an Indian activist who seeks the removal of videos and images that could be seen as offensive to Muslims, his lawyer Santosh Pandey said today.”

“The other companies named in the complaint — Facebook Inc., Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) and Microsoft Corp. — have taken the position that they don’t have control over the content found objectionable, Pandey said.

The court yesterday gave the companies 15 days to submit compliance reports. The next hearing will take place on March 1.
Amber Allman, a spokeswoman for Yahoo, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. Kumiko Hidaka, a spokeswoman for Menlo Park, California-based Facebook, didn’t respond to an e-mail. Debjani Mukherji, a Hyderabad-based spokeswoman for Microsoft, didn’t immediately respond to an e- mail seeking comment.

Google’s deletions are in accordance with company policy of disabling illegal content on its property to comply with local laws, Bhaskar said.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-07/google-removes-search-youtube-content-from-india-domains-on-court-order.html