'Create regulatory body to monitor websites content'

Setting up a regulatory mechanism and making laws to force websites to respond to the government faster would be a better solution than completely blocking them to keep in check objectionable content, a cyber security expert said here today.

"I do not support completely blocking popular social networking websites. In terms of illegal content, the government should create a regulatory authority where they will closely work with all these different websites. Whenever there is something offensive that is posted, it will be removed," Ankit Fadia, a prominent computer security expert and ethical hacker, told PTI.

The regulatory mechanism should be broad-based without the government representatives alone having monopoly, he said. "If the government creates a regulatory authority which has government members only, then public won't like it. There has to be a representation of different sections. There has to be a legal expert, a technical expert... the youth should be represented, the police and the government. It can be a nominated committee and it can change every two years or four years," Fadia, who also works with government agencies, said.

He favoured formulating a law, if it does not exist now,to force the websites to respond faster to the government."There has to be a law which forces the websites to respond to the government faster. I am not a legal expert, so I don't know if such a law exists or not. But blocking should not happen. The government should decide what is legal, what is illegal. Right now, who is there to decide," he said.

He felt that the existing cyber laws are good enough in dealing with issues of defamation.