Be careful when posting on the internet, you are an Indian.

Posting anything derogatory on the internet, no matter even if you are trying to be funny could land you in jail if you are in India. Your service provider, your favorite internet website and even your neighborhood cyber cafe owner will hand you over to the police if need be.

Try to find out the exact laws because who knows your arrest could be the first instance that specific law that will applied to the internet. So whatever is illegal in real world will apply to the internet. If you post a hate message, it is ok, at least as far as the the Mumbai Police is concerned. “hating (someone) is his/her personal opinion and having a personal opinion about someone, anyone, is not an offence as per the law”. But posting an offensive message is. And especially if it related to a political leader or an influential person.

Well, this week two such news items got a lot of attention. Firstly Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid was arrested and faces upto 5 years of imprisonment for posting a hate message (obscene message if news reports are to be believed) on orkut. A report-abuse link on orkut could have handled this issue but things went out of control for Google and they gave out the ip address of the person who posted the message. So next time you are emailing something to a dear friend or posting on a community website, remember that your message could be read by thousands and if anyone reports it to the police and it is found against the law, you could be the next Vaid.

One more celebrity who was blogging from his vacation home was Aamir Khan, the Bollywood star. His caretaker has a dog named after Shahrukh Khan. Aamir could not hold back in using this information on his blog and composed a blog post with this as the highlight. I watched this movie, and am sitting next to a river etc etc and by the way, Shahrukh is licking my feat. Shahrukh wants attention, blah blah blah. Well Shahrukh is my dog. Well, Aamir could not hold back and we doubt he realized what he was saying. After all, he was just typing on his informal blog. His fans did not like this not did others. People took exception to this kind of irresponsible and childish blogpost. Aamir Khan later apologized for his post.

As you write or post on the web, think twice before you click on the Submit button. Does not matter if you are a celebrity big shot or some unknown guy.

Source: http://www.newsline365.com/20081062/be-careful-when-posting-on-the-internet-you-are-an-indian/