Sunday, April 05, 2015

[Satire] Google rolls out Panchayat level content blocking in Haryana

Search giant Google rolled out a new feature today targeting internet
users in Haryana. Now Sarpanch of a Panchayat will be able to lodge a
complaint against a particular search result or an objectionable video
on YouTube. Google would in turn closely review the complaint to
determine if content should be removed. Though Google already allows
complaints lodged by countries, it is for the first time that such
fine grained geographical complaint system has been rolled out
anywhere in the world.

When asked by UT, a Google spokesperson said, “We have a lot of
employees who are from Haryana. I guess that's because of big number
of IIT-JEE coaching centres in Delhi and Gurgaon. Recently many of
them demanded this feature. They said many Khap Panchayats have banned
Jeans and mobiles for Girls. But when one searches on Google - one can
easily see girls wearing Jeans using mobile phones. Those images and
videos should be blocked in the respective villages which fall under
that Khap Panchayat.”

A Google employee spoke to us on condition of anonymity, "I am from
Haryana and Google should respect our local culture. If Chinese
government or EU asks them something, they happily oblige. Then why
should Khap Panchayats stay behind? Our elders recently declared that
Chowmein is the main reason behind rapes. And the very next day a girl
in our village was cooking Chowmein by watching a recipe video on
YouTube. Not only that, Google is also blocking ads by Sex
Determination Clinics on its search page. Now where do our women go if
they have to abort their female embryo? Isn't it subversion of free
market?"

Google officials were unavailable for comments.

Here is an edited version on The Unreal Times.

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