»Monday, December 20, 2004
What the @#$%&*!
Avnish Bajaj, CEO of Baazee.com (owned by eBay) was arrested last week for reasons that transcend any previously known levels of stupidity. Here's what happened: Two Delhi students engaged in oral sex, which was recorded by the guy on his mobile phone. He subsequently sent it out as an MMS, which made its rounds on the cellphone networks, before being finally put up for sale on the e-commerce site by another student. When Baazee.com came to know of it, they removed the sale listing. (note that the listing did not contain the video - like eBay, Baazee is just a portal that facilitates trading between buyers and sellers)
So in this situation, who did the police go after? The CEO of the auction site! It is hard to understand how any sane person can hold the auction site responsible for the content of the ads hosted by them. To those who suggest automated tracking: Computer Science has not yet produced AI that is capable of filtering out such content. No, 'word filters' would not work either. Not to be seen slacking in the area of stupidity, the Delhi High Court rejected Bajaj's bail petition. (Sure, how can we let such a menace roam the streets!)
As noted by Capt Raghu Raman, now do we arrest Bill Gates for allowing spammers to sell porn? or the CEOs of telecom companies for any crime that is carried out over a phone? I'm sure sending Avnish Bajaj to Tihar jail to spend time with murderers and rapists creates a wealth of goodwill all around!
Yes, I am outraged, as every Indian should be, at the shockingly low levels of decency and common sense shown by the police and courts. Can they ever compensate him for the mental agony of having to spend nights in a prison along with the lowest denominator of criminals, and being linked with a sex scandal?
[Google News coverage]
Update 1: as this columnist asks, why treat kids as criminals? The kids who engaged in the sexual act were expelled from school! Why ruin their careers for what can be termed as an indiscretion? People have sex, it is not a crime, and these are high school teenagers - ruining their lives by slapping criminal cases on them, shaming them in front of society and expelling them from school shows that the 'authorities' have a lower maturity level than the students they are dealing with!
...
says.. It may be OK by some yard stick to condone promiscuity, but what about the attempt by Boy involved in this Oral sex episode in Delhi to make money by selling the MMS clip on Baazee site. Is that a laudable enterprise for a teenager to make mini porn clips and sell them? Was he sharing the profits from his deeds with his wlling partner. Its one thing for teenagers to engage in sexual activity in relative privacy but another to make shabby porn clips at that and try to profit them.
Anil says.. Let me answer your comment as well as another comment which was posted in a different place on this blog. Here's the other comment:
"Regarding the arrest and subsequent release on bail of Mr. Bjaj, Bazee.com CEO, Mr. Anil Kandangath is wrong in charecterizing the Delhi High court judge as deficient in judicial wisdom or common sense. Contrary to Mr. Kandangath's snide remarks the judge was quite critical of Delhi police action and released the CEO of Bazee on bail. Perhaps the Delhi police over reacted but that is not very unusual when dealing with crimes committed using technology new to the cops and people in general. People like Kandangath cannot take of their stereotypical biased blinders when writing about things Indian even though he has an Indian sounding name or rather because of it."
So here we go:
"Is that a laudable enterprise for a teenager to make mini porn clips and sell them?"
No.
"Its one thing for teenagers to engage in sexual activity in relative privacy but another to make shabby porn clips at that and try to profit them."
So it would be okay if the porn clips were not shabby? Okay, more seriously, it was wrong for the boy to send out the clip to his friends (It was another student who tried to sell it), but for what crime was the girl expelled from school? What she did on her own private time was no concern of the school unless something was done on school property. Ditto for the boy - Yes, it was wrong to send it to his friends, but what happened to the concept of punishment being proportional to the crime? Don't we all do thoughtless things as kids? Are the school authorities so moral that they believe they can ruin the careers of the kids and brand them as social outcasts for something they did on their own time? Why not just let their parents deal with it?
"Contrary to Mr. Kandangath's snide remarks the judge was quite critical of Delhi police action and released the CEO of Bazee on bail."
After he was denied bail by court earlier.
"Perhaps the Delhi police over reacted.."
Perhaps?
"..but that is not very unusual when dealing with crimes committed using technology new to the cops and people in general.Really? So we can condone their actions since they were dealing with something new? Would you rather they took the effort to know more about the laws they are trying to enforce (after all it is their job), or that they arrested people first and threw them in jail and left it to the courts to sort out the mess? Remember, you could be at the receiving end tomorrow.
"People like Kandangath cannot take of their stereotypical biased blinders when writing about things Indian even though he has an Indian sounding name or rather because of it."
I am proud of my country, and I am always the first to praise it, but I will not turn a blind eye to what's wrong in India, just because I come from there. Things will not get better if you just wait for them to get better.
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
--Pastor Martin Niemöller
says.. I agree with you completely. The law has no role unless the girl's parents explicitly filed a complaint against the invasion of privacy.
Divya (nimbupani.com)
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