Clandestine Internet Censorship in India

nooyi86 writes "China and the Middle East block sites in order to suppress political or social dissent. Website blocking in India, on the other hand, is driven by national security-related paranoia, or hate speech that may lead to violence. The state must save its citizens from propaganda of both the extreme right and the extreme left. Shivam Vij has posted a comprehensive profile of Internet censorship in India."

Why allow western companies to support this?

[Anonymous Coward]

We should ask ourselves if western governments should allow western companies (Google) to support censorship by building this into products.

http://www.verkiezingen2006.nl/ [verkiezingen2006.nl]

Another grey area...

[NotQuiteReal]

Does intent matter?

Even the article summary says it - this is not censorship for political means, it is to prevent inciting violence.

I am 100% for "free speech", but even in the US you "can't yell fire in a theater".

In the US you can freely spew "hate speech", and most people ignore it, as they should.

But is there a different standard, based on the local population? Clearly there are some places in the world where the people are culturally less likey to ignore perceived insults. Should the "don't yell fire" rule be adapted for the locale?

In the West you can do something offense like piss christ [wikipedia.org] and not get a village burned down.

Can you say the same where you are? Should you be able to?

Let's see who has the balls to come up with "Piss Mohammed". Ask a certain Danish cartoonist if he would like to try. Ask him if he would like to do it in a village in India.

Everything is not black and white - there are shades of grey and lots of other colors too.

The reason doesn't matter...

[Darundal]

...it is still the restriction of free speech. While truly "free" speech doesn't exist, even in the US (you can't yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater for the fun of it), governments should strive, as much as possible, to maintain the free speech in as intact a form is as reasonably possible. This strikes me as very Orwellian in nature: Not only are they restricting the speech of several people and groups (based on very vaguely defined criteria) but also essentially curtailing their right to assemble. Personally, it is sad that many other countries in the world do not have their citizens rights as plainly defined as we do here in the states. However, considering how much good that is doing us, perhaps that isn't quite enough either...

Re:Another grey area...

[wannabgeek]

Whatever you say may be true. As I see it, the bigger problem here is not the blocking, but the clandestine way the government can go about it and the fact that the government (ie., the executive and the beauracracy) not being answerable to anyone. A single beuracrat can do this all by himself without needing a permission from judiciary or even legislature. Yes, if it becomes an issue they may step back if it seems to hurt the government politically, but the rules do not prevent the government from acting on its own.

Just a little while back, blogspot was banned. It became a huge issue and so the government directed the ISPs to lift the block. Once the ban was lifted on blogspot, people were content. Nobody asked the government what justification it had to block the various sites and the government did not even bother to issue a clarification about why it did what it did.

Interesting conincidence_

[morleron]

Hmmm...The link is dead, but does not appear to be Slashdotted as it responses quickly to a ping. Is this a case of dynamic cencorship in action?

More seriously, given the trend towards totalitarianism here in the U.S. I won't be surprised when this sort of thing begins here. After all, what better way to control a population than to deprive the people of information, particularly information that reflects badly on the government? Anyone want to start a pool about when this begins here in the U.S.?

Just my $.02,
Ron

Not necessarily bad

[nbharatvarma]

This need not necessarily be bad. I am an Indian and I am living in Hyderabad. Some politicians regularly instigate people against each other on religious or caste basis (e.g. Muslims against Hindus, Hindus against Christians etc. or within Hindus, across upper and lower castes). Since India is unique in that there is representation of almost every major religion in the world, some politicians or people close to them try to use this to create unrest (in extreme cases, riots) and try to use it for some upcoming elections or something like that.

We don't have problems with corporates trying to pry our fundamental rights as yet by controlling the government because the state has very good representation from every sort of background instead of just one party. But for the same reason, we have other problems.

I am pretty sure that from the way things are done in India correctly, there is no way the government can do anything reduce our fundemental rights. There are too many cross-checks for that.

Re:Another grey area...

[Max von H.]

The USA: 280 millions ppl, somewhat educated for the most part.
India: 1 billion+ ppl, out of which a big bunch are poor and uneducated.

Educated people mostly disregard hate speech ('they know better') but we've all seen the kind of mass hysteria that can go through the poor/illiterates, whether it's in South-East Asia, the Middle-East, Africa, a football stadium or in Kentuky.

I can't stand censorship, but I don't believe hate speech should be tolerated, especially when the targeted audience doesn't 'know any better', for it leads to a form of wide scale brain-washing. Hate speech goes against the very idea of freedom and equality, why should it be tolerated? Theft is against our principles and isn't tolerated, calling for hate and murder shouldn't be either. Hate speech is what's used on populaces to spur wars and, ultimately, makes the bed for extreme dictatorships.

I don't think the exercise of freedom should require the ability to destroy what's taken centuries to achieve just to satisfy some ignorant, frustrated, deranged wannabe-dictators.

Note that I live in a country where hate/racist/negationist speech is forbidden by law and I for one find myself a lot more free than if the stupidest branch of the gene pool was able to get its way.

Re:Interesting conincidence_

[Xyrus]

After all, what better way to control a population than to deprive the people of information, particularly information that reflects badly on the government? Anyone want to start a pool about when this begins here in the U.S.?

Apparently, it's working quite well already.

~X~

Re:Another grey area...

[It's a thing]

Here in America, that's the exact opposite of the goal of school. http://johntaylorgatto.com/ [johntaylorgatto.com]

Re:Another grey area...

[scheme]

The USA: 280 millions ppl, somewhat educated for the most part. India: 1 billion+ ppl, out of which a big bunch are poor and uneducated.
Educated people mostly disregard hate speech ('they know better') but we've all seen the kind of mass hysteria that can go through the poor/illiterates, whether it's in South-East Asia, the Middle-East, Africa, a football stadium or in Kentuky.

You're also ignoring the fact that the US hasn't had any recent incidents of major religious strife. India has had something like that in the last 60 years so people alive still remember having family injured or killed for religious reasons.

Northern Ireland has a relatively educated populace but it's still had quite of a bit of catholic vs. protestant strife so I don't think that education explains it all.

Re:In the US you can freely spew "hate speech"

[Darundal]

Of course, because the KKK says nothing that could be construed as "hate speech" during their rallies, marches, and other events that they decide to have in public venues...

Re:In the US you can freely spew "hate speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, actually, you can. Look up "ACLU v Skokie". Hate speech is legally protected unless it is likely to incite "imminent lawless action", just like any other form of speech. Imminent in this case is determined as "faster than someone there can call the cops and an officer can arrive on the scene".

Re:Why allow western companies to support this?

[danbeck]

Why? What would this accomplish, other than government getting it's filthy hands deeper into the private sector?

From the stand point of the US, our constitution protects us from government censorship of political dissent, in the form of speech and in the right to assemble. That protection does not extend to the right for the federal goverment to tell a company what content they can and can not serve it's customers.

Google can not censor what our constitution guarantees, only the goverment can do that. It's an ignorant premise to think that google doesn't have the right to do whatever they damned well please and only allow people to search whatever damned content they please, as long as those things don't break local or federal laws.

Last I checked, the body of people who think that the internet is made from tubes has not decided that it's unlawful for a website to only show the content it wishes to show. That would be like saying McDonalds.com has to show a Wendy's or Taco Bell menu, for the sake of ending the censorship of it's competitors.

If Google should be forced to never censor it's pages, that means link and adword spammers should stay at the top of search results and Google should never have the right to even rank a page, as they are censoring those pages that are only somewhat relevant to a search keyword. Exactly where does your idiotic idea end?

You are wrapping your self-righteous crusade to end censorship in your own little version of it. You have the right to do what you want and be free, but Google doesn't?

Here's a suggestion, why don't we work within the law and do what has been done for over 200 years in this country. If a company is doing something you do not like, or their level of service is subpar to your standards, DON'T USE THEIR SERVICES.

That's right, stop using Google. Tell your friends that Google is in bed with the Chi-comms and they oppress the Chinese people. Tell them of the Evils(tm) of Google and start a movement to educate the world. Just stop expecting the government to wipe your ass.

Re:Another grey area...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Hate speech goes against the very idea of freedom and equality, why should it be tolerated?

No it doesn't. Hate speech is a bunch of angry people being very, very offensive and trying to provoke a reaction out of their audience. That's all it is. If the crowd chooses to become violent because of it then the individuals who became violent are the ones really at fault.

Placing all the blame on the rhetoric is just a cop out. People are responsible for their own actions and being drunk, angry or "under the spell" of some speaker is just nonsense. It's just another way of saying they were possessed by demons or some other supernatural influences. They weren't.

A talented and devious speaker says words meant to stir people into a frenzy. Big whup. Why should the rest of us lose our rights? Who gets to decide what's hate speech? What if someone protests vehemently against animal experimenters or corporate power or homosexuality or infant circumcision? Are they going to get locked up for being anti-science, anti-capitalist, anti-homosexual or anti-semetic? It's peoples actions that are illegal, not their opinions, expressed or not. I'll tolerate any opinion if the alternative means having ThoughtCrime on the books.

Theft is against our principles and isn't tolerated, calling for hate and murder shouldn't be either.

Soliciting murder is against the law. Calling for people to hate someone or something isn't. You might not like it, but people do have a right not to like, and even hate things. It's like that old Tom Lehrer joke: "I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that."

People are free to hate. Happiness and love for your fellow man are not mandatory. Do we need to have "Good Citizen" inspectors that scrutinise people for any "anti-social" charaterstics? What you're proposing is mandatory political correctness. I'm sorry, but I would rather have my right to be offensive over your "right" not to be offended.