India censors blogs « More shameless remarks by Larko

India censors blogs

Wednesday, July 19, 2006 at 11:42 | In Bloggers' rights, Blogosphere, Freedom of speech, India, censorship, internet | 9 Comments

As the New York Times reports, the Indian government has in the aftermath of the Mumbai train bombing ordered Indian ISP’s to block a number of blogs. The Indian Express suggests that only a handful of harmless blogs would have been targeted but the reality is much worse than that. All blogs hosted by Blogspot.com are among those that cannot be accessed in India.

In case of Blogger, the blogging engine is not being blocked but only the domain Blogspot.com that hosts the blogs. This results in, as Hurree writes, that bloggers can access their blog dashboard and edit their posts or even make fresh posts but they are unable to read their own blog. Such is the absurdity of censorship.

Alternative ways to access the conserned blogs are readily available allover the web. Nena has a comprehensive coverage of the ISP’s that are blocking sites and different ways to get around the block. Nena’s post also includes loads of contact information of ISP’s and government agencies responsible for the censor action.

I for one have hard time understanding the logic behind this Indian act of censorship. I agree that terrorists may use blogs in a wicked way but terrorists are also known to eat. Should all restaurants and food stores therefore be closed? Terrorists would eventually starve but so would a whole lot of innocent people.

Trying to censor the Internet is not something one would expect from an elected government in a democratic country, in particular a country that likes to call itself the largest democracy in the World. I would like to think that this is a panic reaction after the terrorist act based on bad judgement by some unfortunate government officials. Maybe they were desperate to find a fall guy and blogs seemed to be a good target to blame.

If that is the case, the strategy seems to work at least partially. NDTV.com has a poll asking the following question: “Is there any justification for blocking blogs?”.

As I entered my nay, the score was 31,5 % yes and 68,5 % no. In other words, 707 people out of a total of 2243 must think that there is at least some justification for blocking access to blogs. That is almost one of three.

The Indian government is certainly not helping the victims of the Mumbai bombing and their loved ones with this stupid act of censorship. The only thing they are certain to achieve is the outrage of the global blogging community.

Even I am targeted because I still have a couple of blogs hosted by Blogspot.com. Although they are not likely to be read in India it is a matter of priciple. I have the right not to be understood in what I blogged in Finnish and Estonian and the Indian government must not take away that right.

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The restaurant analogy is apt. I think all this could be happening because of the ignorance of the govt about blogs. Terrorists can easily communicate even with the ban and it is somwehat absurd to assume that they would use blogs in the first place. The govt of a democratic country does have a vested interest in all this as you have pointed out.

Its a shameless lark and it is perhaps in the fitness of things that it be exposed shamelessly by larko as “loha lohe ko kaatta bai”

Comment by Hiren — Wednesday, July 19, 2006 #
yeah i heard about that hey come check me out at http://dantheman123ya.wordpress.com i think u might like it

Comment by Daniel Comstock — Wednesday, July 19, 2006 #
Hiren, as you said, censoring blogs has nothing to do with fighting terrorists and I think the government knows that. As that NDTV poll shows, however, some members of the public do not know and this act may very well be an attempt to appear doing something. Nevertheless, it displays very bad judgement since it back fires in a much worse way than any imagined benefit might be.

Comment by Larko — Wednesday, July 19, 2006 #
Neu auf der Blogroll: Larko…

Lange ist es schon überfällig: das englischsprachige Weblog von Larko aus dem hohen Norden Europas ist nun auch auf der Blogroll von Mein Parteibuch.
Larko lese ich wirklich gern, aktuell zum Beispiel den Artikel über die absurden Versuche der in…

Trackback by Mein Parteibuch — Thursday, July 20, 2006 #
[...] As almost all international news these days is full of hatred, war and violance, it is encouraging to detect that the Pakistani blogging community is reaching out for Indian fellow bloggers. As I wrote yesterday, the Indian government has stupidly blocked access to a very large number of blogs, including those hosted by Blogspot.com. [...]

Pingback by More shameless remarks by Larko » Blog Archive » Pakistani bloggers help out Indian fellow bloggers — Thursday, July 20, 2006 #
[...] Nimelt on India valitsus oma lolluses püüdnud veebi tsenseerida piirates juurdepääsu suurele hulgale blogisid, sealhulgas kõik Blogspot.com’is asuvad. Ja rahvusvahelise blogosfääri solidaarsuse mõttes tõttavad pakistani blogijad nendele appi. [...]

Pingback by Larko lobiseb (peegel) » India tsenseerib ajaveebindust — Thursday, July 20, 2006 #
Blog blockade will be lifted in 48 hours – Shivam Vij
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/19blogs.htm

Comment by Njus — Thursday, July 20, 2006 #
[...] Rediff news wrote for more than 48 hours ago that the block against Blogspot, Typepad and Geocities would be lifted by the Indian government within 48 hours. The article suggests that the government would have wanted to block just 17 specified blogs rather than whole domains and the extent of the block would be a result of ISP’s going too far because of a technological error. Error or not, the block seems to be contunuing well over 48 hours after the article was published. [...]

Pingback by More shameless remarks by Larko » Blog Archive » Indian blog curtain stays down dispite promises — Saturday, July 22, 2006 #
[...] of blogs is out of every proportion. This incident reminds me of the Indian government’s ill-adviced operation last year to censor all blogs hosted by Blogspot.com. A number of tools and proxy servers were set [...]

Pingback by WP blocked in Turkey « More shameless remarks by Larko — Tuesday, August 21, 2007 #