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India Joins China in Censoring Websites

Posted by timothy on Mon Jul 17, 2006 01:22 PM
from the keeping-up-with-the-wangs dept.
Censorship The Internet
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.
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[+] Indian Government Lifts Ban on Blogs 135 comments
iDope writes "The Department of Telecommunications of the Government of India has lifted the ban on blogs (reported previously on Slashdot) following pressure from the Indian blogger community and the media. Even with the lifting of the ban several bloggers from BloggersCollective are getting ready to file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) (similar to a Class Action Lawsuit in US) in the Supreme Court of India against the Government censorship of the Internet."
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  • For some, it seems odd that a radical anarcho-capitalist would support ANY State action, especially censorship. There is usually only one anti-State camp: the people who want to dismiss the State through some means (voting, bloody revolution, non-violent revolution, black market lifestyle, etc). I don't see ANY way to get rid of the State and any of its forms of coercion (including censorship) through any of the previous means. Every time a right is taken away by a State, every time the State steals from you in the form of taxation and every time the State decides it can help large groups, it does so at very little cost to the individual. You and I won't do anything to prevent US$1 a year from being taken from us, or some fringe right that we don't really see heling our existence. Yet when you combine all those little US$1 fees taken from each individual in the US, someone is earning billions. That person will work extra hard to protect that income, but the millions won't work extra hard to fight a US$1 fee annually. The same is true with rights -- most people won't worry about their basic rights because they feel mostly free. When 10 million people are harmed by an infringement, 290 million residents aren't. Why should they care about 0.3% of the population?

    The reason I support State censorship of all media is the same reason why I support the State in all of its madness: the more they do to harm us, the more the free market will provide means for entrepreneurs to find new ways around the madness.

    Many of the towns near me have increased their sales tax: up to 9% in some towns! The free market provided loopholes around sales tax for years, and the Internet is the ultimate form of working around the local madness. I don't buy very much locally anymore, and I get to save a huge amount that the State would usually get. It makes me laugh when the local politicians argue about what they're losing to the web. They stole from me, now I get to take it back.

    Many of the towns near me are starting to create smoke free "public places" which exist within private property. You can't smoke in restaurants, bars, nightclubs, anywhere. The free market is opening up amazing private property venues for me -- I've already visited 4 private dinner clubs -- the houses of famous and strong chefs in the region who gave up their jobs in order to provide exceptional meals to private consumers. They don't charge a fee, they ask for a donation. For US$50, I can get an amazing meal that gets around most of the regulations of the restaurant-restrictions placed. I can smoke, the chef can cook foods in ways that restaurants often can't, and I pay less than 1/3rd of the usual fee. Some dinner clubs include great wine, and the service is top notch. The chef doesn't worry about income taxes or permits or paying off the local zoning authority and health agency -- and I have yet to hear of anyone getting sick or the like. Good for me, good for the chef, bad for the State.

    Let the State censor all of us -- it will only give entrepreneurs more reason to find anonymous replacements of the publicly regulated web. Give it time and who knows what will happen. If every device will be State-required to have some sort of "control" mechanism or DRM or who-knows-what, someone will develop a private hive network on our cell phones or PDAs or old hardware. As long as the State restricts, the market will find ways to provide.

    The State: let it grow, let it restrain, let it fail to provide and let the imbeciles that support it think they're doing good for others. I've already found my ways to ignore it in 70% of my life. Eventually I'll extend that more, and not be concerned with what the mad majority wants to do this year that will harm people for generations.
    • Interesting thought. I'm curious to hear what you think about organizations that push/support the state censorship though. And then they pursue those who seek alternative measures to bypass it.
      • The State has only one intention in mind: create criminals. Nothing the State does can be considered otherwise. This means that people will suffer when some non-violent act is considered criminal. Look at drug laws: they don't work, but they're a great way for the State to expand its income. The same is true of any action that is non-violent in nature (drugs, prostitution, home schooling, gambling, selling, buying, etc).

        When the State decides to censor people, it comes in two ways: direct censorship ("You can't talk about subject A") and indirect censorship ("You can't talk about subject B that someone else already talked about"). Subject A is the type of censorship that China and now India are doing. Subject B covers copyright and patents -- both are censorships against words and actions a person wants to perform with his own time, on his own property, using his own body and tools.

        There is only one reason for either type of censorship: to protect the interests of an elite individual or group. Subject B censorship (copyright and patents) protects distribution cartels -- the few who control the distribution of content or specific items. Subject A censorship (direct prevention of talking about a certain subject) protects the State itself -- giving major power that is usually used against "enemies" of the State. Both States are corrupt -- if you go to jail because of a corrupt system, there is little that can be done to protect your interests.

        We'll hear cries for our own State to work against the States that are censoring others, even though the State we live in is no better. I guess the best defense for my black-market support around censorship is that some eggs will break in order to make the best omelet. Some people will go to jail or will just disappear -- these are those who are directly harmed by the State. Yet millions more will be given more freedoms in whatever the free/black market provides to get around the restrictions and regulations. Over time, this will make us more free in the shadow of the State -- eventually technology will get to the point that no restrictions will be possible on anything the State does. This is a _good_ thing and it is why I consider the "Internet" the most anarcho-capitalist society in existence.

        Do I want to be the one to disappear in a cell (or a ditch)? Absolutely not. I was recently in China, and everyone there already has good ways around the State. The government can pretend that their censorship is working, but most Westerners are completely ignorant of the reason behind censorship by China (and India, where I also just visited for almost a month) -- jailing political opponents. The censorship has nothing to do with real topics or anonymous groups -- it is just another tool for the State to get rid of their opponents. It is no different that the "Watch your neighbor" tactics of the USSR, and the US decades ago.
          • what about state sponsored health care? road/sewer/water/electricity maintence? I fail to see how any of these create criminals.

            State sponsored health care kills thousands if not millions of people every year. Try releasing a much needed experimental drug to people who are willing to try it -- you'd go to jail. Try charging less to a poor patient than you charge the State -- you'll go to jail (the US government has an entire office dedicated to finding doctors that charge less than they charge Medicare). Try bringing more doctors to the market than the AMA/US wants -- it is illegal.

            Try providing alternative water or electricity in your neighborhood -- you'll go to jail. In my previous town I spoke with various neighbors about uniting together to get a large generator installed on our block (this was pre-Y2K, and some people were concerned). We received various competing bids but were told that the local town wouldn't allow it. When we asked for a variance we were told we couldn't do it, and when we tried to do it anyway we were threatened with fines. When we asked what would happen if we didn't pay the fines we were threatened with court and jail time. True story.
              • I think zoning laws are some of the worst laws in existence -- private property should not be regulated as long as actions on that property don't harm another's property physically. I believe if my generator made noise that affected my neighbors, there should just be tort laws that cover it (and I believe tort can be provided for in a free market without the legal system!). If I pollute my neighbors property, fine. But if I want to paint my home pink with stripes, I should be free to. If I want to build it all the way up to my neighbor's property, I should be free to.

                The Medicare thought of my is NOT disingenous. Look at this WashTimes article:

                No Charity Allowed [washtimes.com]

    • Re:I support State censorship of all media (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2006, @01:29PM (#15732487)
      The problem with what you suggest is that eventually physical violence will be necessary in order for individuals to exercise their rights. You're encouraging the state to do its worst, which makes me think you need to go back and read some Solzhenitsyn to see just what the "worst" looks like.

      Advocating such a policy seems irresponsible, especially since we haven't yet figured out how to convince the so-called "progressive" elements of society that self-defense is, in fact, a basic human right. You're basically saying we should turn a bunch of wolves loose in a pen of sheep.

    • Re:I support State censorship of all media (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rob1980 (941751) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:30PM (#15732495)
      I'd just as soon rather have the government not pester me in the first place as opposed to engaging in the cat and mouse game that you seem to prefer.
    • They stole from me, now I get to take it back.

      Actually, you just get to stop them from stealing from you now . They still have the money they taxed away last week.

    • Re:I support State censorship of all media (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kfg (145172) * on Monday July 17 2006, @01:38PM (#15732575)
      The reason I support State censorship of all media is the same reason why I support the State in all of its madness: the more they do to harm us, the more the free market will provide means for entrepreneurs to find new ways around the madness.

      Bearing in mind that we call such free marketeers "pirates" and "terrorists" and toruture and shoot them.

      Thank you for your patronage and enjoy your Soviet style "free market." We couldn't do it without you.

      The State

      KFG
      • Bearing in mind that we call such free marketeers "pirates" and "terrorists" and toruture and shoot them.

        For now. Give it 5-10 years and there will be more than enough anonymity devices to protect anything the State considers deviant thought or action.

        Thank you for your patronage and enjoy your Soviet style "free market." We couldn't do it without you.

        The difference between the Soviet Union and today is that the USSR had no Internet, technology worldwide wasn't very advanced and the ability to communicate
        • All of these things have changed thanks to the free market entrepreneurship that continues to advance technology and the Internet.

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

          • Re:I support State censorship of all media (Score:4, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2006, @03:16PM (#15733346)
            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...

        • "Bearing in mind that we call such free marketeers "pirates" and "terrorists" and toruture and shoot them."
          For now. Give it 5-10 years and there will be more than enough anonymity devices to protect anything the State considers deviant thought or action.

          Thats the most weak and naieve thing ive ever read. Have you considered the possibilty of you being shot or locked up long before such devices - which would certainly be illegal to produce, distribute, possess - come into exsistance? Not to mention the idea

        • For now. Give it 5-10 years and there will be more than enough anonymity devices to protect anything the State considers deviant thought or action.

          Once burned, twice shy: I'm still waiting for my flying car.
    • I *hiccup* came up with this swell drinkin' *hiccup* game. Every time the parent *hiccup* poster recommends the free market as the solution to *hiccup* everything, you take a shot.

      I've made it halfway through his post *hiccup* and I'm still stan....

      *THUD*
      NO CARRIER

    • And I get told I'm crazy... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gentimjs (930934) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:50PM (#15732660) Journal
      And people here call me nuts when I suggest slashdot is crawling with Austrian-School anarchist whackjobs.... /me rolls eyes. Take all these "anarcho-capitalists" and put them on a desert island for a week ... the one left alive after that week probably wont be an anarcho-capitalist anymore... /me is center-seeking and dislikes all extreemes.
      • What does "center-seeking" mean? There is no "center" between being a Statist and being Anarcho-capitalist. Either you think freedom requires the State or it doesn't. There is no "center" there.

        My reasons why the State shouldn't exist is proven every day -- just spend a day at your local courthouse, take note of every law that is violated, and think about what the person did that directly harmed a specific individual with that action. I do this about 3 times a year, and so far the best day for the State is when 9 out of 600 cases had to do with a specific crime against an individual's property, body or tool. 591 cases were "The People against ABC" and ABC didn't do anything that hurt anyone directly. This was on their best day!

        I'd rather live in a world where those 9 people who were hurt are still hurt, maybe 27 people even, than in a world where 591 people go to jail or lose in court because of the State's desire for more power and money and the control of the expansion of both power and money.

        • Re:And I get told I'm crazy... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by jsm (5728) <james@jmarshall.com> on Monday July 17 2006, @02:31PM (#15732964) Homepage

          ... because of the State's desire for more power and money and the control of the expansion of both power and money.

          Large businesses do the same thing. The difference is that the government has to at least pretend to be acting in the interest of the voters. With private industry in power, there is no voting them out.

          I'm sure you can name a few large corporations whose fiercely-guarded monopolies and influence on our governments makes them more resemble Soviet-era state-owned industries than a "free market".

        • I'd rather live in a world where those 9 people who were hurt are still hurt, maybe 27 people even, than in a world where 591 people go to jail or lose in court because of the State's desire for more power and money and the control of the expansion of both power and money.

          And yet the free market ideals you espouse would allow corporations to, in effect, do the same thing. The difference is that, ideally, government acts in the interest of the people (though it tends to become misguided), whereas an ultra-p

        • There is a reason anarchy never lasts long. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by S.P.B.Wylie (983357) on Monday July 17 2006, @05:20PM (#15734209)
          And it never EVER does. Government is a permanent in society. Allow my to show a example. Let's say there is no government. Someone has a big gun (or other weapon), and you do not. You, on the other hand, have found a way to sustain you and your family off the land. The guy with the gun (lets call him Bob) figures out that if he threatens you, he can just steal your stuff. Bob does this to several groups over a period of time. The groups finally have decided that they have had enough, and they band together to stop the threat. They take out Bob, and also decide if anything like this threatens them like this again, they will band together again. They pledge to work together to stop stealing and murder in their groups.

          And just like that, there is government. Actually, if you paid attention, two states formed: first a dictatorship by Bob, they a group lead state (democracy-like) for the common good. And it isn't a far step to control other things. Lets say there is a drought. Groups realize that if other groups die, they have less protection, so they feed the group. Or they realize that the same thing could happen to them, and they help the other groups so the other groups will do the same for them one day. Now the government is a function of not just protection, but welfare. This highlights a few facts of government:
          1. States are a constant. As long as we remain social creatures, they will always exist.
          2. States can just be a community banding together for the common good. It is just a function of organized society.
          3. States can be formed for the majority (the groups) or the minority (Bob). Your choice.

          There is a great quote from Churchill, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everything we have tried so far." If state is a constant, as I have shown, then it is better to have a government run by the group then an individual. Now, you may argue that America is run by individuals, but they are elected officials. To get office, they must appeal to the people for support, so if they do something stupid, you can't remove responsibility from the people. Who you are really mad at are people that allow oppressive and/or stupid laws/individuals to remain. Don't like it, work to change it: educate people. Support better schools to teach people how the world works... Wait, you don't like paying taxes, do you. Then I guess your right: there is no hope. Sorry for disagreeing

          • Re:And I get told I'm crazy... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by dada21 (163177) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Monday July 17 2006, @02:25PM (#15732922) Homepage Journal
            But the Left and the Right are almost identical all over the world -- both sides are just vying for personal power of the politician. Neither side has any ideology that differs much from the other in the long run.

            I remember when the Right in the US was against public schooling, public health care and welfare. That is no longer true. I remember when the Left in the US was against Big Business, internal improvements and war. Again, no longer true. By "center" you just mean "center-Statist." There are two sides of the political coin: those who believe in the market of competition and those who believe in the monopoly of force. Center/Left/Right-ists are aligned on the monopoly of force side of the coin.
            • Yet the snow-plow driver was forced on me, in this case, against my will. My town has no public-paid snow plow: each block pays for its own company.

              Sounds just like you'd also like to bring back to the days of the private fire deparments [wikipedia.org] where no badge on your door meant they'd let your house burn to the ground since you hadn't payed up.

              Get a grip, Mr. Ultra-Freemarket nutjob... *hiccup*

              You're one of the few people on slashdot whose nick I recognize by virtue of the sheer volume of your posts that get modde
    • while I see your point, it breaks down as the state continues to grow.

      the state does NOT want people working around it, and left unchecked it will flex it's growing muscle to PREVENT those who do work around it - with manipulation, increasing force, and eventually simply locking up, toturing and killing those who rebel.

      This is simply a question of some people thinking it's OK to control other people. To a small degree, it works - and keeps order, to a larger degree, it still works, but people start to get
    • The reason I support State censorship of all media is the same reason why I support the State in all of its madness: the more they do to harm us, the more the free market will provide means for entrepreneurs to find new ways around the madness.
      You're absolutely right. This is the same reason I go around sucker-punching total strangers. I figure that the more often I sneak up behind someone and ram my fist into their kidneys, the more motivation they'll have to ummmm.... avoid getting sucker-punched in the kidneys?

      I also go around stealing things left unattended, like books, backpacks, and small children. This increases people's motivation to pay attention to their private property, which is good because you never know what sort of unsavory people might be around.

      Anyhow, I'm doing my part to make the world a better place. What about the rest of you?
  • 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.

  • Good for innovation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Henry V .009 (518000) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:29PM (#15732485) Journal
    Maybe this is good:

    Censorship in a technically savvy, non-repressed country, will spur censorship-circumvention technology by leaps and bounds.

  • All your TOR are belong to us? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by davidwr (791652) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:30PM (#15732491) Homepage Journal
    First they came for the political dissidents. I was not a political dissident.

    Then they came for the religous prosthelizers. I was not a religous prosthelizer.

    Then they came for the pornographers. I was not a pornographer.

    Then they came for the bloggers. That day I got religion and began standing up for my right to sell p0rn.

  • not completely new (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Coneasfast (690509) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:30PM (#15732493)
    India has always been a censoring country (although not as much as China). Usually, anything sexually obscene, or anything else considered highly controversial with the general population will be censored/banned (ie, movies such as 'Water').

    However, censoring blog sites is a step down, why would they do this?
    "The list [of censored sites] is confidential and I can't make it public"
    It seems like they are trying to push some sort of hidden agenda.

  • Cencorship sucks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2006, @01:31PM (#15732499)
    This is very sad. The reason lies not only with dumb politicians but also dumb implementation of policy. Basically, the Indian govt. had sent a list of 22 blogs/sites that it wanted blocked and the ISP's just blocked the entire domain. I hope this will be corrected soon.
    Not that I condone the blocking of the 22 sites. Opinion, no matter how counter culturalistic, or hard to swallow must be allowed to be expressed.
    The good out of this is that Indian bloggers have filed an application for release the list of the 22 sites blocked. I am very interested to know which sites were officially blocked and why? I have a suspicision that this could have something to do with recent bombings in India. For now, I guess its wait and see.

  • Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cisko Kid (987514) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:33PM (#15732520)
    I saw Indiana Jones in that headline. I need more coffee....
  • From TFA:

    "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."

    They can't block 95% of the Internet! :-)

  • It won't last... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymovs Coward (724746) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:48PM (#15732641)
    India isn't China. Never attribute to malice what is explained by incompetence, especially in India. Some bungling bureaucrat had this bright idea, but the sites will be accessible again in a short while. It's happened before. (In fact, right now I can access them from my home account though not from my work account.)

  • Democracy sure does equal freedom (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MikeRT (947531) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:05PM (#15732759) Homepage
    Take that, you idiots who wring your hands about "losing your democracy." Democracy and freedom are not the same thing, and the one does NOT by default lead to the other. In fact, the only major accomplishment of democracy has been to grant legitimacy to the Fascist state. It allows the masses to throw their weight in behind every violation of the rights of the minority.

    What India has proved is that democratic states have no inherent moral authority. It has landed itself in the same mass of political crap that China and Saudi Arabia are in. There is no moral difference between states that censor, even if it is "benign." Either way, a state that practices official censorship of anything except for media that requires violence or fraud to be created, is a regime that directly or indirectly uses the threat of loss of life, liberty or property to silence others. There is no moral difference between a threat of prosecution and simply shooting someone in the head, when the offense is speaking out with an unpopular idea.

    And by the way, has that rubbish about the Internet detecting censorship as damage and routing around been relegated to the trash heap of history where it belongs? It seems that for citizens of China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, India and Britain (with its hashed list of "bad sites" as if we even know whether they're all illegal under British law.) that the only routing that is being down is getting in trouble or sent to prison for non-compliance.

    • Re:Democracy sure does equal freedom (Score:4, Interesting)

      by radish (98371) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:55PM (#15733182) Homepage
      Either way, a state that practices official censorship of anything except for media that requires violence or fraud to be created, is a regime that directly or indirectly uses the threat of loss of life, liberty or property to silence others.
      I agree, but you left the US off your list of countries. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but you did all the same. There are plenty of examples of banned media in the US which needed neither violence nor fraud to be created. You can read more here [upenn.edu] and here [banned-books.com].

    • Re:Democracy sure does equal freedom (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Vellmont (569020) on Monday July 17 2006, @03:22PM (#15733390)

      Democracy and freedom are not the same thing, and the one does NOT by default lead to the other.


      I think you're exactly right, and that's why the founding fathers of the US gave us the bill of rights. They knew that democracy didn't grant freedom and had to be something explicitly addressed as one of our highest laws. They were all specifically designed to protect the rights of the minority over the tyranny of the majority. They also made it hard to take away these rights by creating a difficult (but not impossible) process to amend the constitution.

      Obviously democracy isn't perfect. It took almost 100 years for the US to abolish slavery, and really we still haven't recovered from its effects yet. India is a very different place that the United States. It's still extremely conservative when it comes to sex, and the cast system is directly opposite the egalitarian values of the US. I don't think it should be surprising that they're still trying to control access to new ideas from the western world. In the end it won't matter, especially in a less restrictive country like India. You can't stomp out the rest of the world even NOW, and we're becoming more connected every day. Just think about how different the world is going to be in only 50 years.
    • There is no moral difference between a threat of prosecution and simply shooting someone in the head,
      I can tell the difference, but you can't. That puts you at a certain advantage compared to most others when thinking about these kinds of issues. I suggest you keep out of political discussion until you've learned to see the difference, otherwise you'll only make a fool of yourself.

  • Censorship in India (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bayankaran (446245) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:10PM (#15732783) Homepage
    Censorship in India is inconsistent and haphazard to say the least.

    Local and Central governments will ban/reject a book/film on the pretext that it will be dangerous to religious sentiments or social harmony. An example is the James Laine's book - An Epic on Shivaji [hinduonnet.com], books by Salman Rushdie, the Peter Seller's comedy 'The Party', and even the innocuous (though a bit silly) documentaries made by Louis Malle in the late 60's.

    Most of the Anand Patwardhan documentaries [patwardhan.com] were banned/not cleared and his battles with the Indian censor boards show the tolerance level for the overlords are very low. One of the documentaries (if my memory is correct 'Father, Son and Holy War' [imdb.com]) had footage of the chief minister of the state of Maharashtra and later the speaker of Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) - Manohar Joshi [wikipedia.org] - seen extolling Hindu women during a rally in a remote Maharashtrian town to give birth to more children to offset the rise in Muslim population (typical FUD by hardliners). If such utterances can be made at a political rally, I have no idea what banning the documentary will prove.

    The same time, the most vulgar, sexist and reactionary Hindi (Bollywood for you), Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam or other popular cinema pass the censors with absolutely no problem.

    Also the Indian Government is yet to relax its hold on radio and licenses to operate a station [wikipedia.org] - which actually reach the 100% of the Indian population (compared to 10-20% reach of the mostly urban satellite/cable.)

  • India and China are very different cases (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CurtMonash (986884) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:11PM (#15732798) Homepage
    China's obvious censorship goal -- quasi-permanent suppression of the citizens' desire to be able to throw their rulers out of office. (Which is the one big advantage democracies have over other forms of government. Even if you usually replace the bums with guys equally bad, the fact that you can get rid of them certain limits how bad they can get.) This should be fought at almost any cost, both on moral grounds and for enlightened self-interest. And so I'll again shamelessly plus my proposal of how WE -- yes, WE -- can make a difference. http://www.monashreport.com/2006/04/17/how-to-beat -chinese-censorship-operation-peking-duck/ [monashreport.com]

    India's apparent censorship goal -- well, like the anti-Nazi free speech limitations in Europe, India's political censorship seems to be focused on defusing (and diffusing) racial, religious, or ethnic tensions, so that they don't erupt into violence or worse. This censorship is certainly something we should carefully monitor and worry about, but it could yet turn out to be relatively benign. E.g., as another poster suggested, it could be the work of an overzealous bureaucrat, or some incompetent ISPs panicking in the face of a sensibly limited directive and blocking much more than they were told to. Either way, the whole thing might and hopefully will soon be reverse.

    And just to be clear -- I think ALL this censorship is stupid. I just think that some of it is bad enough to be my problem and yours, while some of it is benign enough it should be left to the people of the affected countries themselves to deal with as they see fit.

  • Related to recent Terrorist attacks? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by EqualSlash (690076) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:12PM (#15732807)
    I am guessing that it's most likely related to the recent Terrorist attacks in Mumbai. India's National Security Agencies have been reporting that Terrorists have started using blogs for provocative propaganda that could corrupt the minds of gullible youth. The Indian Government is under huge pressure to extinguish the activities of the terrorist groups that have in recent times started misusing technology for their malicious ends.

    • 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

  • At least there's a fightback (Score:3, Informative)

    by nigham (792777) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:12PM (#15732809) Homepage
    ...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]

  • This is quick (Score:3, Funny)

    by cyfer2000 (548592) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:21PM (#15732892) Journal
    China and India just opened their border about 10 days ago [boston.com], now India has learnt something from China, they are really quick.

  • Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Conspiracy_Of_Doves (236787) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:34PM (#15733003)
    "Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master"

    - Pravin Lal

  • Censorship in America and beyond... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by beaverfever (584714) on Tuesday July 18 2006, @08:44AM (#15736056) Homepage
    Censorship exists everywhere, and I don't think it is accepted more hypocritically than in the west, espesically the US.

    Government censorship is considered to be a symptom of tyranny, yet the public as a whole readily accepts and expects corporate censorship, and has for decades. When it comes to television and radio, "you can't say that" or "you can't see that" have been used for decades [ericnuzum.com] to suppress words, ideas and images, and very few people seem to mind. I don't think that any US television network will deny the existence of network censors.

    1968 "Sponsors go into an uproar and threaten to pull support after a television program shows interracial 'touching.' During the taping of a duet between Petula Clark and Harry Belafonte, Clark lays her hand on Belafonte's arm (Clark is white and Belafonte is black)."

    "After being invited by the Smothers Brothers to perform his anti-Vietnam anthem 'Waist Deep in the Big Muddy' on their TV show, Pete Seeger is edited out of the program by the censors at CBS television."

    1971 "Several radio stations alter the John Lennon song 'Working Class Hero' without the consent of Lennon or his record label."

    1975 "Radio stations across the country refuse to play Loretta Lynn's 'The Pill' because of its references to birth control."

    2001 "Producers of Late Night with David Letterman cancel an appearance by singer Ani DiFranco after she refuses to drop plans to perform the song 'Subdivision.' The song deals with racism and white flight to the suburbs."

    Censorship is all around you. China and India did not invent it.
      • But like 100% of their population is brown, right? And "from what I've heard", they've got Muslims in their movies and bodies of government. Besides, it's a "well known fact" that Muslims are all fascists, especially those who seek power, just India's president Abdul Kalam.

        Seriously, I don't really know why you or I took the time to respond to the GP, except maybe to make sure that people reading his comment know that it has no basis in fact. India's Muslim population is undoubtedly increasing, but India

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