India Shuts down Blogs

Siamese · Jul 19, 2006

From :

India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) passed an order to ISPs Friday to block several websites. The list is confidential. Indian ISPs have been slowly coming into compliance. SpectraNet, MTNL, Reliance, and as of Monday afternoon, Airtel. State-backed BSNL and VSNL have not started yet but likely will soon. The known list of blocked domains is *.blogspot.com, *.typepad.com and geocities.com/*.

Yes folks, the Indian government has decided to censor blogs and refused to explain why. This morning Shivam Vij managed to talk to Dr Gulshan Rai, director of CERT-IN, the only body authorised to issue directives to ISPs. His response: "Somebody must have asked for some sites to be blocked. What is your problem?"

The ostensible reason for blocking millions of blogs on these servers is given as combatting terrorism. As Boingboing notes, this is like shutting down the phone service because terrorists talk to each other using telephones.

Bloggers first became aware of this yesterday (July 17). We held off on it to see if it was real.

Here is an update, also via Boingboing:

According to a report on NDTV 24X7, an Indian news channel, the Indian government's clampdown on blogsites (and some websites) is NOT connected to the recent blasts in Mumbai, but is an effort to curb the propagation of religious extremism on the Net. If that's true, the ban may not be lifted any time soon. The Indian government, however, has yet to issue an official statement on the subject.

If it's not clear from what has been said so far, the Indian ban applies to ALL blogs from these sites, not just those originating in India: ALL blogspot, typepad, geocities blogs worldwide. If you have a blog from one of these providers anywhere in the world, I cannot read you.

We would be among the first to say religious extremists are the bottom rung of the human ladder (we are not sectarian about it; all religious extremists are in this category as far as we are concerned). We do not believe blog censorship is either a practical or proper solution, however. There will always be a (more or less easy) way around it for the nutcases and the net result will be other important sources of information will be suppressed. The religious extremist angle is an excuse. The Indian Government is probably happy to shut down information.

Like the Chinese government.

http://tinyurl.com/hwa37

Siam
I think now we won't get anything out of India that the Govt doesn't wants us to see. They won't be getting any news other tha Govt approved as well.

Siamese · Jul 19, 2006

Re: India Shuts down Blogs

The above is from Effect Measure.

hawkeye · Jul 19, 2006

Re: India Shuts down Blogs

Very unfortunate that the government has resorted to such an act.

JJackson · Jul 19, 2006

Re: India Shuts down Blogs

That is horrendous. China I expect it from but that India has gone down that route is very sad news. I look forward to the Indian press response which I expect to be fairly forthright they will see it as the thin end of the wedge and, I hope, fight back.

sharon sanders · Jan 28, 2008

Re: India Shuts down Blogs

Thread updated to include original news story:

Are Internet Service Providers blocking blogs?

Shivam Vij | July 17, 2006 19:25 IST

 Bloggers in India are getting together to protest against the sudden blocking of popular Google-owned blog-hosting site Blogger by some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Spectranet, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Reliance Powersurfer, Airtel Broadband and Sify.
On July 15, Mridula Dwivedi, a teacher of management studies in Gurgaon first discovered that visiting any blogspot blog -- such as, say Mumbai Help -- returned the message, 'Site Blocked!' Her ISP, Spectranet, confirmed they had blocked some sites based on government directives.
J Grewal, Spectranet's Delhi representative at the National Internet exchange of India, told this reporter that, on July 15, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had sent ISPs a list of sites to be blocked. R H Sharma, senior engineer with MTNL, said the list ran into some 22 pages.
Now, several bloggers have organised themselves into a Bloggers' Collective and are planning to file a Right To Information application to obtain the list.
Anil Saxena of Spectranet confirmed that the list sent by the DoT contained names of particular blogs, but added that Blogspot as a whole had not been blocked. This is contrary to the experience of customers like Dwivedi, who are still unable to view sites hosted on Blogspot, in addition to those on Typepad and Yahoo!'s Geocities. "The list is confidential and I can't make it public," said Saxena.
Under the Information Technology Act, 2000, a body called the Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-IN, was created along the lines of similar authorities the world over. Although its main task is in the domain of Internet security, it also oversees Internet censorship under a clause that seeks to ensure 'balanced flow of information.' Any government department seeking a block on any web site has to approach CERT-IN, which then instructs the DoT to block the site after confirming the authenticity of the complaint.
Web sites can be blocked if they contain pornography, speeches of hate, contempt, slander or defamation, or if they promote gambling, racism, violence or terrorism.
"Such sites may be blocked within the provisions of the Fundamental Right to free speech and expression, granted in India's Constitution," said cyber-law expert Praveen Dalal, adding, "If, however, the blocking is arbitrary, unreasonable and unfair, it would be in violation of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India."
The trouble is bloggers don't even know which sites the DoT wants blocked. To make matters worse, ISPs seem to be blocking entire domains on which these blogs are hosted.
In 2003, one of the first things CERT-IN did was to approve the blocking of an obscure mailing list run by a banned militant outfit, the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) of the Khasi tribe in Meghalaya. Ironically, the popularity and visibility of the list went up by leaps and bounds, despite it being blocked by all ISPs. Many could still see the list via email or proxy surfing.
This time, something similar seems to have happened, to not one but three domains. However, CERT-IN's Director, Dr Gulshan Rai, said he was unaware of the problem and would not be able to respond "off-hand". In a telephone interview, he told this reporter, "Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?"
Bloggers certainly think of it as a problem though, and are all set to react.

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/17blog.htm

sharon sanders · Jan 28, 2008

Re: India Shuts down Blogs

More update on this issue:

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=21244&postcount=3

After 2 days, India calls blog block an "error"

After 2 days, India calls blog block an "error"

By Somini Sengupta
Published: THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2006

NEW DELHI: After two days of angry inquiries and charges of government censorship, the Indian government took a step towards explaining a mysterious block to personal blogs, calling it "a technological error" that would be repaired soon.
In an e-mail sent early Thursday an official at the Consulate General of India in New York said the order to block a handful of Web sites, including the popular blogspot.com, which hosts thousands of personal blogs, had been prompted by the discovery of a Web site that contained what the official called "two impertinent pages" rife with material that contained "extremely derogatory references to Islam."
In an effort to stave off potential sectarian violence, said the official, who was not authorized to speak to the press, the government's Department of Telecommunications instructed Internet service providers to block access to the two pages.
"Because of a technological error, the Internet providers went beyond what was expected of them which in turn resulted in the unfortunate blocking of all blogs," the official explained.
The New York consulate's response came a day after a number of news articles appeared in the U.S. media, including The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. It remained unclear why, despite repeated efforts, officials at the Department of Telecommunications in the capital, New Delhi, refused to provide any explanation for the blockade earlier this week.
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blockade has sown anger and confusion among Indian bloggers, who accuse the government of censorship and demand to know why their sites have been jammed.Among the speculations that had been offered was that certain blogs could be used by terrorists to coordinate operations.
On Tuesday, when reports of the blockade emerged, officials at the Ministry of Communications did not return repeated calls. Gulshan Rai, an official at the ministry's Department of Information and Technology, said he was aware of "two pages" that had been blocked for spreading what he called anti-national sentiments, but did not provide details.
Also on Tuesday, a technician at a Bangalore-based service center for one Internet provider said the government had ordered blogspot.com to be blocked "due to security reasons." Another service provider in Delhi said the government, without explanation, had directed his company to block access to fewer than a dozen sites; he could offer no details on the nature of those sites.
The secretary for telecommunications, D.S. Mathur, the highest-ranking civil servant in the sector, hung up the phone when reached at home.
Nilanjana Roy, a Delhi-based writer who runs kitabkhana.blogspot.com, a literary blog, called the blockade "a dangerous precedent."
"You have a right to know what is being banned, and why it's being banned," she said. "I can understand if it's China or Iran or Saudi Arabia. I'm truly appalled when it's my country doing this."
The ban, which has come into effect in recent days, means that people living in India are, in theory, kept from reading anything that appears on the blocked platforms, whether Indian blogs or otherwise.
But the ban seems far from effective. Some Internet providers have blocked access. Others have not, and many more blog aficionados have figured out how to continue reading their favorite sites.
One Web site offers help, by way of a free blog "gateway." "Is your blog blocked in India, Pakistan, Iran or China?" it asks, and goes on to offer instructions for outwitting the restrictions.
That site was prompted by the efforts of the Pakistan Telecom Authority to block blogspot.com in February, as a way to prevent Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad from spreading.
The tempest indicates growing government anxiety about how to control this mushrooming medium.
Like blogs anywhere, Indian blogs serve as forums to pontificate on national passions: books, movies, politics, cricket. There are blogs devoted to everyday self-indulgence: One blogger, a self-described amateur photographer, writes of jogging in the monsoon, while another recalls what she wore to a cocktail party.
And there are blogs that strive to be public service tools, including one that, within hours of the Mumbai train bombings, began listing phone numbers of hospitals where victims had been taken. Called mumbaihelp.blogspot.com, it is now blocked.
Last Tuesday's attacks in Mumbai killed 182 people and wounded more than 700.
It is impossible to know how many Indian blogs are affected. One blogger, Mitesh Vasa, from Vienna, Virginia, has documented "40,128 Indian bloggers who mention India as their country." That does not include those who do not name which country they are based in, nor others who identify their country of origin, as Peter Griffin does from Mumbai, as "utopia."
Griffin, who helped set up the mumbaihelp site, said he woke up Tuesday morning to a furious litany of 300 e-mail messages, mostly from bloggers enraged by the blockade. He could find no rationale for the blockade, he said. Even if, as the speculations suggested, certain blogs posed a risk to national security, anyone with a domain name could do the same thing on an ordinary Web site.
"It doesn't make sense," Griffin argued.

India Shuts down Blogs

Siamese

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Siamese

Senior Member

hawkeye

Well-known member

JJackson

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sharon sanders

Editor-in-Chief & President

sharon sanders

Editor-in-Chief & President