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External affairs minister Salman Khurshid on Sunday suggested that every freedom should have limitations and social media should be regulated in India but it seems he has forgotten what he had advised West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee when last time Khurshid was here at the annual general meeting of Indian Chambers of Commerce.
Khurshid, the then Union law minister, had told Mamata Banerjee to take social media in her stride and evaluate the reactions accordingly. Last year during that time, owing to pressure from Bengal chief minister, CID had written to Facebook asking it to delete morphed images of Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool congress had to face a lot of criticism from all the spectrum's' of the society.
Infact, a JU professor was sent to jail for circulating a cartoon which made fun of the TMC supremo on how she ditched Dinesh Trivedi from the railways and brought one of her close aid Mukul roy as the railway minister.
External Affairs minister's urge to regulate social media comes as a contradiction to his own piece of advise to its then ally TMC but this change might have been propelled by a slew of high voltage criticism of the UPA government as it trembled to deal with the recent Sri Lanka issue and Italian Marine case.
After India allowed to send the two Italian marines back and the Italy government said they will not return the marines, Twitter and Facebook started buzzing on posts/updates on this issue making fun of the UPA government. This was further fueled after DMK pulled the plug and withdrew the support from government.
Intrestingly, the then Union law minister had pointed out that laws were already in place which can be used in public interest.
“I don't think we should start thinking we are in a vulnerable or helpless situation. Too much of a restriction on social sites won't yield results, even Americans could not stop wikileaks,” he had claimed.
“There is no conflict between us and the social media. I think the social media -which gives the opportunity to voice one's opinion to a larger audience—is doing good stuff as well. We have to take it in our stride and evolve our reactions to it keeping in mind that social media is a reality and a part of life," Khurshid had told reporters in Kolkata.
