Sri Lanka’s parliament has overwhelmingly approved an internet regulation bill being criticized as a move to stifle speech in an election year.
  • Bappity@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    9 months ago

    Sri Lanka will find itself either being laughed at in the face or banned from a lot of sites

    • huquad@lemmy.mlEnglish
      9·
      9 months ago

      Your post must be taken down and you must submit to questioning or else. \s

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The government led by President Ranil Wickremesinghe submitted the bill for debate on Tuesday, after which it was passed in the 225-member house, where the ruling coalition enjoys majority.

    The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the bill would create a repressive law with broad and vague “speech-related offenses punishable by lengthy prison terms.”

    The Asia Internet Coalition, which has Apple, Amazon, Google and Yahoo as members, said the bill “would undermine potential growth and foreign direct investment into Sri Lanka’s digital economy.”

    The secretary of the Sri Lanka Professional Web Journalists Association, Kalum Shivantha, said the bill would severely impact how they do their job.

    He said more than 8,000 complaints were filed last year related to online crimes, including sexual abuse, financial scams, cyber harassment, and data theft.

    The shortages of necessities have largely decreased over the past year, but public dissatisfaction has spiked after the government imposing new high taxes on professionals and businesses and raised energy bills.

    The original article contains 477 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!