The Chilling Rs. 100,000 Tax On News Websites
You get this error message when you visit banned sites.
The Sri Lankan government is now asking that news websites not only register, but that they also pay Rs. 100,000 for the privilege, plus Rs. 50,000 annually. This addresses the ruling parties personal and financial insecurity in one blow. It’s also an extremely chilling tax (they call it a fee) on new media and artificially inhibits Sri Lankans right to publication, as guaranteed under the Constitution.
14. (1) Every citizen is entitled to -
(a) the freedom of speech and expression including publication;
I would venture that demanding a fee equal to three times the average household income limits citizens freedom in that regard. This government is not content to make tax payers pay for their propaganda via state owned media like The Daily News and ITN and Rupavahini. They also want to tax any citizens trying to get into media for themselves. This follows them blocking various news sites, arresting journalists, and generally intimidating and blustering around.
This tax is terrible because it inhibits anyone trying to express themselves or create websites after all. After all, what exactly is a news website? Is this blog? If I hired two writers would it become one? Who knows? What if you have not a news website but a popular Facebook page?
Here is how they justify the tax:
“New technologies and methodologies were used in the media and the government thought it fit and the time is right to make amendments to existing act to accommodate new technologies,” minister Rambukwelle said.
Minister Rambukwelle said the law was needed because some websites were publishing ‘raw filth’. (LBO)
Which doesn’t really make sense. The government has mass producers of raw filth on public payroll, like Mervyn Silva. They just don’t like criticism or information leveled against them, ie free speech. This is an absolute travesty and a shame.
I’m happy to be featured in Echelon magazine’s 40 Under 40 feature, profiling young people who contribute to the economy in some way, mainly in business but also in terms of innovation and thought leadership. It’s an interesting article not just in that I’m in it (mainly for work on indi.ca and 
I won’t add too much commentary, but just read I guess. The youngest Rajapaksa, Rohitha (Chi Chi) has given an amazing interview to the 
In 2009 this strange character appeared on the Sri Lankan Internet scene, getting angry, flaming, trolling whatever. Then he started naming anonymous bloggers, posting comments as people’s kids, nasty stuff, for which I removed him from 
The chutzpah of this government knows no bounds. Every government since Independence has had to balance placating Sinhala nationalists (AKA racists) while at the same time actually running a sensible, inclusive nation that doesn’t send minority citizens, capital and foreign investment fleeing. Basically, they’ve had to pay lip service to nationalists while at the same time trying to run an actual nation. Every government has also generally failed, SWRD being killed by a nationalist monk and everyone after almost losing the country to various rebellions. In that context Mahinda is actually doing a better job by virtue of not being dead and not losing control of the country. But he’s still not doing a good job.
Drop by drop the ocean grows.
Rights and liberties are slowly eroded but unless one takes a step back and looks its is difficult to see how far the drift has been. Taking a step back becomes a lot more difficult when all much of what passes for news is propaganda.
The Daily Mirror is now a travesty of its former self, more like the Hi magazine than anything else. There is still some reporting but very little critical analysis of the news, just bland reporting. The daily Island, is controlled by a minister’s family so tends to be generally supportive of the state.
Even the Sunday Times tend to push bad news into the inner pages, if one does not read carefully one can miss a lot.
Some questions:
What is the solution for people creating “news websites” that print purely slanderous material with no basis in fact?
Should such people be treated as “journalists”? Do you need a degree to be a journalist? Or can anyone call themselves a journalist if they can write articles? What is classified as the “freedom of the media”? If someone puts up a “news website” and then accuses you of, say, paedophilia in an article, with your name plastered all over it should you accept it as being part of “media freedom”? What if you want to take action against his defamation but the website is anonymous without any “editors” or physical address? What should you do? What if the website puts out an article saying that you were engaged in a corrupt deal, but it isn’t true – what are your avenues to correct this? Everyone knows that is is common in Sri Lanka for people to character assassinate someone, not on the basis of fact, but for pure personal grudge. The internet has made that all too easy to do.
Anonymity won’t matter. If it’s a blog or website it is supported by providers and servers. They can be traced and sued. At the very least, they can be taken down. Regulation is a curtailing of freedom.
Why the tax, then?
Simple. When government feels like they are loosing control, they crack down harder than ever. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely.
[...] down on the issue, in this case media freedom, the government dials up the crazy, this time by imposing an onerous tax on online [...]
This is insane. And I wonder how they defined a news website? They might charge this from blogs pretty soon, If the situation goes like this.
People will try to hijack these stupid rules then. In Sri Lanka. These blocking is mostly done at DNS level. So simply changing your DNS server you can simply access most blocked sites. Try Google DNS</a. It works very well with Etisalat. Not tested with others.
Thanks for sharing you dumb ass.You’re gonna ruin it for everyone.
[...] down on the issue, in this case media freedom, the government dials up the crazy, this time by imposing an onerous tax on online media. Basically, before the media and ordinary citizens are finished being offended by [...]
@Arunoda thanks for the tip on alternative DNS.
WTF is this really? They are blocking cloudfront.net CDN content – this is providing some static JS files used on our sites.
It’s broken in Sri Lanka, and we are not a news site nor a Sri Lankan site. Just that Sri Lankan users going to have a bad experience.
[...] the issue, in this case media freedom, the government dials up the crazy, this time by imposing an onerous tax on online media. [...]
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[...] Indi.ca lashes at the decision: The government has mass producers of raw filth on public payroll, like Mervyn Silva. They just don’t like criticism or information leveled against them, ie free speech. This is an absolute travesty and a shame. [...]
[...] Indi.ca lashes at the decision: The government has mass producers of raw filth on public payroll, like Mervyn Silva. They just don’t like criticism or information leveled against them, ie free speech. This is an absolute travesty and a shame. [...]
[...] Indi.ca lashes at the decision: The government has mass producers of raw filth on public payroll, like Mervyn Silva. They just don’t like criticism or information leveled against them, ie free speech. This is an absolute travesty and a shame. [...]