India Joins China in Censoring Websites

cpatil writes "On the directions of the government of India, Indian ISPs have started censoring and blocking web properties. This was first noticed by Indian bloggers and upon inquiring with their respective ISPs, the actions are confirmed. Unfortunately, Blogspot and TypePad are the targets till now." There's an ongoing discussion of the censorship on GoogleGroups. The rediff.com coverage linked above indicates that the blocking is based on a list issued by India's Department of Telecommunications.

I guess slashdot would be on the blacklist

[crummyname]

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.

My, that's awfully broad.

At least there's a fightback

[nigham]

...and it's come in quick time.
http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Bloggers_Against_ Censorship [wikia.com]
http://groups.google.com/group/BloggersCollective [google.com]

Re:I support State censorship of all media

[Anonymous Coward]

For some odd reason, the participants in the free market never saw building a global packet network as an opportunity.

Uh, what about the privately run X.25 networks (Compuserve, Tymnet, and Telenet)? These were operating in the early 70's when TCP/IP was still "in the crib." So TCP/IP won out in the end...

The first commercial ISP (UUNET) appeared in 1987 when there were only about 10,000 hosts on the Internet.

By 1991, the Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) connected General Atomics (CERFnet), PSInet, and UUNET. So despite TCP/IP being development mainly by the military-industrial complex, it was rapidly taken up by commercial interests. Keep in mind that the NSF AUPs made Internet commercialization difficult before then.

I've seen plenty of free market global packet networks built...

Re:Related to recent Terrorist attacks?

[rovingeyes]

I am guessing that it's most likely related to the recent Terrorist attacks in Mumbai

No. You are giving too much credit there. Stupid actions like these are acts of an idiot bureaucrat, who thinks he is doing society a favor by not creating religious tensions. For e.g. 4 states in India banned the recent Da Vinci Code. Well just like in US, you can file a case in the state's supreme court and the supreme court actually chided the state govt for crossing the line. Thus, it is a matter of time before someone actually files a case and this thing will be over turned.

Strangely, I can still access these sites..

[MasJ]

What's weird is that I can still access these sites. Blogger.com works albeit slowly. Mumbaihelp fails to load, upon checking (using a proxy) though it seems that it's a problem with the site, not my ISP. For the record I'm using MTNL Broadband, which is clearly mentioned in the article as one of the blocking parties.

Though if they are resorting to censoring the internet, well, that makes my blood boil a fair extent. Something would need to be done. Seriously, putting aside all the Goatse's (which our Slashdot brethren love..) and the other bad stuff on the net, I love the net for it's inherent freedom. Can't have them censoring it now, can we ?