Telecom minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday said there is need for consensual structure to deal with the issues related to the social media and the cyber space. He was speaking at the India Internet Governance Conference.

While making it clear that the government does not intend to curb the freedom of expression of the people by governing the internet, Sibal said that a transparent and sound mechanism need to be put in place to stop the misuse of the of the internet.

He lauded the role of the internet as a catalyst to empower the common people but said there should be some accountability in case issues related to its misuse emerge in future. He expressed doubts over the present structure to deal with the cyber crime.

“Can the present structure of the internet could provide for accountability of an individual or an entity in case a cyber crime was committed”, he asked.

He said that it is not about governance or diktat, its about the individual who has the right to free speech on the internet who in turn is accountable for what he says because the structure provides for a mechanism through which his accountability can be tested.

He however said that before such mechanism is evolved there are a number of issues that need to be taken into the consideration. They are a consensual procedure, clarity of jurisdiction, identifying diverse stakeholders.

It may be recalled that the government had to crackdown on the social media cites in August for objectionable contents which resulted hate campaign against the people from the North East. Subsequently it blocked around 310 websites and 16 twitter accounts.