Lirneasia pretty much sums up all the nonsense here.
This latest ban, which has no basis in law, comes hot on the heels of the government ordering ISPs to block several porn websites, the Child Protection Authority banning the “hosting” of porn on mobiles, and the sickeningly subservient attitudes of mobile phone companies to appease a government that arbitrarily blocks websites other than porn it finds inconvenient.
If this is what the future looks like today, it stands to reason that we should be very worried about this inane, hypocritical encroachment of paternalistic government into our private lives.
Sri Lanka’s recently discarded tourist promo line said it so well: A Land Like No Other!
Where else do you get an utterly schizophrenic administration that, at once, claims to modernise the society through ICTs and satellites of our own, and in practice, places hurdle after hurdle on the diffusion of specific digital technologies through market forces and social acceptance?
Where is the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka in these debates? It claims to be the apex agency, with a lofty vision “To harness ICT as a lever for economic and social advancement by taking the dividends of ICT to every village, to every citizen, to every business & to re-engineer the way government thinks & works”? http://www.icta.lk/index.php. Yet in practise, it is reduced to being the government’s webmaster and an operator of way-wide cyber cafes, with no discernible policy influence. Certainly the Telecom regulator has consistently ignored the ICTA in many respects in recent months.
If the ICT Agency does not speak out in the interests of ICTs, why do we even need this potty little agency that spends much of its budget on ad agencies, media relations and event sponsorships?
Or, are mobile phones not part of the definition of ICTs that the ICTA follows?
Does the I in their name stand for information or ignorance?