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Clandestine Internet Censorship in India

Posted by CowboyNeal on Sat Oct 07, 2006 09:29 AM
from the too-hot-for-your-screen dept.
Censorship The Internet
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."
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  • Why allow western companies to support this? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by 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... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotQuiteReal (608241) on Saturday October 07 2006, @09:55AM (#16348103) Journal
    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.

    • Re:Another grey area... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wannabgeek (323414) on Saturday October 07 2006, @10:03AM (#16348159)
      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.
    • You should be able to say what you want, and let other people draw their own conclusions about what you're saying. That said, schools should focus a lot more on developing critical thinking skills, so people won't be so easily influenced by bullshit.

    • Re:Another grey area... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Max von H. (19283) on Saturday October 07 2006, @10:50AM (#16348479) Homepage
      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: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by scheme (19778)

        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 lik

      • 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

      • 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

        Like the poor, ignorant 9/11 hijackers?

        a football stadium or in Kentuky.

        Huh?

        • You can legitimately "un-tolerate" it by speaking out against it, by pointing out the rascists, homophobes, et cetera, are idiots.

          "Rascists", "homophobes", "idiots", why is it that the bulk of ad hominem arguments comes from "the nice people"?. In most cases, what your dealing with is a "Nationalist" (someone who distrusts certain nationalites because of cultural characteristics) or someone who contempt the homosexual lifestyle, rather than fearing homosexuals and someone who's parranoid rather than stu

            • The definition you provided is absolutely correct. A nationalist is a person devoted to nationalism. Nationalism is belief in the importance of the welfare of one's own nation. A nation is a social contruct based on culture and identity. Thus a nationalist promotes the welfare of those with the same culture and identity as them. Thus a nationalist does not promote the welfare of those who do not. You can't just quote a dictionary entry and if it doesn't mention a charactaristic then that charactaristic does

        • Hate speech is very far reaching, and your request for non-violation of your personal rights is insufficient.

          As an example, you are a store owner, member of a proper religious sect $FOO. Life is good. Then some people start hate speech against your sect. For example, they imply that your sect sacrifices newborn babies and makes hamburgers out of them. Your store sells hamburgers. Suddenly you see fewer customers, and later on your store is firebombed. But not a single word, not a single action was ta

    • For those who doubt that this is really happening in India, here is conclusive proof:
      I'm in India, and I cannot access the article. In fact, I've seen this happen to many articles that Slashdot links to! ;-)


      BTW, the page gives a Wordpress error saying "Error establishing a database connection"... nevermind, it's back up again; maybe the guy was just fiddling with some settings.

    • 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?

      Indeed, India, while being a true democracy, is quite different culturally. For example, it has active laws criminalizing homosexuality, and there no intent to change them so far, because the people themselves are against it. I wonder if the people would actually suppor

    • 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?

      You Americans might find this ironic, but the Indian Constitution, when it was first promulgated in 1950, actually had protection for context-free, free speech (meaning, free speech for free speech's sake without any restrictions whatsoever). The First Amendment, pro

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Darundal (891860)
        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...
        • KKK?

          Um, you forget there are others that are in the 'hate' game. Ever hear of the black panthers? They are no different, and guess waht, they are black.

          Or are you a raicst yourself and only 'whitey' can spew out hate?

          • The Black Panthers has toned down their rhetoric a lot since the days of their inception. The KKK, on the other hand, is still as hateful as ever to many more groups.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by 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".

        • That is US only though. So it does not apply to the rest of the world where the level of triggerhappiness is not a deciding factor. It is either hate or not.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Shihar (153932)
        No, actually you cant. Currently the courts consider that outside 'protected' speech.

        No, that simply is not true. Almost all speech in the US is legal. It is REALLY hard to cross the line. The only way they can put you away is if you are inciting an imminent crime. If you tell your lover to go kill your husband, you could get in trouble, anything short of that and you are safe.

        The Folly case is a good example of this. Folly pretty blatantly is hitting on some underage kids (by Florida age of consent la

        • ... exceptions I can think of that US has in its free speech laws are copyright violations ...

          Interesting but that's a rather large hole in the free speech laws.

          Keep in mind that free speech can be compromised just as easily by too much noise (bad information or repetition) as by too little information. The USA suffers a lot from the former with commercial marketing in particular drowning out alternative points of view.

          ---

          DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fa

  • ...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. Personall
      • Please, do give examples of where our first amendment rights are being violated in a significant way?

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by fishbowl (7759)

          >You do still have the freedom of speech to be an ignorant fuck and say what you just said, don't you?

          I know of a few situations where freedom of assembly is abridged, but in general I agree with you.

          You cannot gather together with 75 other ignorant fucks on public land without getting permission from the government first. And you cannot do this at all unless you are willing and able to designate one of those 75 people as an individual who can take responsibility for the entire group. This sounds reaso

      • Will it allow you to post anti-semitic words?

        Let's see. "Fucking Jews; they are responsible for all the wars in the world."

        Hmm. The filters must be down or something.

        If I say N*gro, will my comment be deleted? I think it will; most sites have moderators, and it makes sense.

        I think the word you are looking for is 'Nigger', and it has never stopped the GNAA from using it here. The difference is that Slashdot is a privately owned site, and they can place whatever restrictions they want (within reason) on thei

  • e'osai ko sarji la lojban
  • 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

    • Article Text (Score:5, Informative)

      by cyxxon (773198) on Saturday October 07 2006, @10:54AM (#16348523) Homepage
      Had trouble getting this, others obviously as well, so here it is.

      ---

      The Discreet Charms of the Nanny State
      Published by Shivam Vij October 6th, 2006 in The Internet and bylines.

      Books and films are banned as a result of protests when someone claims to be offended, but websites are blocked unilaterally, clandestinely by the government in its benign attempt to save you from propaganda of both the extreme left and the extreme right.

      An edited version of this article by me has appeared in Tehelka.

      On 29 June this year, the Department of Telecom of the Ministry of India's Communication and Information Technology asked some 150 Internet Servive Providers to block access to the website of the People's War Group, www.geocities.com/cpimlpwg. Exactly a month later, the DoT issues another letter informing ISPs that "M/S Yahoo! Inc." (which runs Geocities) had removed the PWG site anyway, and so all ISPs were requested to make sure that Geocities per se was not blocked.

      This is the first time a provider of Internet services has agreed to the Indian government's demand of completely removing a particular website, thus establishing a dangerous precedent. Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft do this regularly for China and other countries, with the difference that it is public knowledge there, and these companies come under attack from free speech activists the world over.

      It is curious as to what made Yahoo! Change its mind about India: in 2003 they had refused the India's demand to remove a mailing list run on Yahoo! Groups by a banned militant outfit, the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), a militant outfit of the Khasi tribe in Meghalaya.

      The terms and conditions of these online services - which no one reads - clearly say that they may terminate their services on requests by law enforcement or other government agencies without prior notice.

      On 15 May 2006, the Maoist website www.peoplesmarch.com was deleted by their hosting company on the request of the Indian government. Not that it has made much of a difference to them: they're now at http://peoplesmarch.googlepages.com/ [googlepages.com] whose homepage asserts their right to free speech and condemns India's censorship attempts. So how long before this site gets blocked too? To be sure they have put up all their content on http://peoplesmarch.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com] as well. Planning to block this one too? They have the content stored somewhere on their hard disk and they'll put it up on a thousand free sites. There's also http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com] and many more.

      The most illustrative case of Internet censorship in India is that of Hinduunity.org, which, though run from the US by one Rohit Vyasmaan, claims to be the official website of the Bajrang Dal. The Hindu Unity site posts anti-Muslim hate speech, creative interpretation of Qur'anic verses and most famously, a "hit list" of those who it says are against Hindus. The hit list has on it not just leftist columnists but also people and organisations who in India would be regarded as being somewhat sympathetic to Hindutva. Lalu Prasad Yadav is listed for "swindling Gau-chara's money"!

      In 2001, the site's then host in the US, Addr.com, received complaints about the site. Vyasmaan told Addr.com that his site did not advocate violence, but they shut down the site anyway for its very obvious hate speech. As it happened, Hinduunity.org was then rescued by Rabbi Meir's Kahane group, a banned Zionist organisation in the US. Hinduunity now advocates "Hindu militancy" on its site, and heavily aligns with the anti-Palestine cause. No wonder it is block in countries of the Middle East as well.

      Hinduunity.org was first blocked by India in 2004, when the NDA was in power and when the site was calling Atal Bihari Vajpayee names for 'catching the pseudo-secularism bug'. Curiously, in July 2006 the DoT again asked for
      • Clandestine blocking isn't nice, but it's probably not exclusive to India either. When 4chan.org [slashdot.org]'s /b/ board got onto the Internet Watch Foundation's list of banned sites (supposed to be only for child porn sites, and filtered by several UK ISPs - a law has been passed that will eventually require all UK ISPs to block the sites on the list), allegedly certain UK ISPs (BT and NTL) used stealth blocking techniques such as fake 404s and redirecting to the site's own "banned" message. (Incidentally, the IWF app

    • Re:Interesting conincidence_ (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Xyrus (755017) on Saturday October 07 2006, @11:35AM (#16348771) Journal
      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~
      • An interesting idea. However, I think that Occam's Razor probably comes down on the side of blocking information as it's easier to do that than it is to create false information. However, you do have a good point because people who aren't able to think critically and don't really know how to do research (both things that our "education system" is very bad at) can certainly be misled by being encouraged to believe that information that comes from "your side" of an argument is always true, while that from t
  • 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 upcom
    • "Since India is unique in that there is representation of almost every major religion in the world..."

      That's weird, I thought unique meant one-of-a-kind. But, and I'm not trying to be smug here, I always thought the United States of America had representation of almost every major religion in the world too... possibly as much or more than India?

      Anyway, that point aside, I generally liked your post.

      TLF
        • "Since India is unique in that there is representation of almost every major religion in the world..."

          You didn't clearly specify that representation meant "governmental officials of that religion", hence the confusion.

          As far as representation in the population, U.S. wins that one. As far as gov reps: Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, Unitarian, Scientologist, Quaker, Unspecified...

          Don't get all high and mighty.

          http://www.adherents.com/adh_congress.html#109 [adherents.com]

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by aquiltar (771588)
            Yes, but someone Jewish or Muslim might see Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Orthodox Unitarian and Quaker as being nearly the same. And will you deny that Christian sects don't feel some kind of unity as Christians versus non-Christians, us versus them? There are sects and castes among Hindus too, and if you really want me to draw an analogy between the sects of Christianity and those of Hinduism (and the intra-religious conflicts), I will. But people don't tout the government representation of various sects a

            • America is about 80% Christian, 1% Jewish, 10% other. The religious conflict in the country is mostly about anti-Islam and anti-Judaism -- both groups are in a severe minority, and Muslims are in a power-minority, and you _don't_ see people commiting arson and murder out of religious hate.

              Religious hate between different parts of Christianity is common in the USA. Arson and murder does happen. Think about the bombing of abortion clinics. Most of us think our countries are unique in some way. we are more al

          • >As far as representation in the population, U.S. wins that one. As far as gov reps: Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, Unitarian, Scientologist, Quaker, Unspecified...

            Think again; you're basically saying that there are Jewish, Christian and 'unspecified'. That's *three*. Sorry, but different sects of the christian faith are still *christian*.

            If we had buddhists, muslims and pagans as representatives also, THEN we would be on a par with india; but at this point, we don't.

  • Alternate link (Score:5, Informative)

    by Skapare (16644) on Saturday October 07 2006, @10:52AM (#16348507) Homepage

    Here is an alternate link [tehelka.com] since it appears the original site has been emptied.

  • It could also be that the Indian Govt. is blocking sites in a clandestine fashion to prevent unduly publicising such inflammatory sites. FTFA, blocking a particular site will only make the webmasters move the site elsewhere, because there's no such thing as a 'ban' in the internet. now, if the indian govt. were to inform the public that they blocked www.badpropaganda.org, it will only make more people take notice of the site, google for it and read it wherever it is (certainly) moved to.

    I do respect the c

  • The article mentions some of the (I think it was 19?) blogs that were recently banned in India. These include "The Jawa Report", "Merri Musings", and "My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" (bamapachyderm.com). It says that they "have anti-Muslim hate speech in varying degrees".

    That's not entirely accurate.

    The Jawa Report is an anti-Islamist blog, and undoubtedly would be offensive to some Muslims.

    My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy isn't focused on Islamism to the same degree, but does comment on it.

    Merri Musings bare
      • The article says that the blogs "have anti-Muslim hate speech in varying degrees".

        For that to be true, the net for "hate speech" (a term I thoroughly loathe) must be cast so wide as to include every element of human discourse. For any reasonable definition of "hate speech", the statement is untrue.

        Your call.
    • Yeah, because history has shown repeatedly that by hiding a problem you can make it go away.

      ~X~
      • Last I checked, India was a "democracy", which implies a certain level of legitimacy for the denizens of it's power structures. Of course that also means that an oscillating half or more people object to government actions. If a pleurality of Indians really didn't want any govt meddling in a given area, they'd make it unconstitutional. No griping over targets when meddling is accepted.

        As for "clandestine", there are multiple interpretations possible. As a rule, Customs does not announce seizures unless

          • Ah, glad you asked: censorship is mutilation of a work of art to remove elements the censor deems undesireable while substantially preserving the rest of the work.

            The FCC practices censorship by extortion on radio licencees. They have to air songs with the expletives deleted.

            • "They have to air songs with the expletives deleted."

              No, they don't. They can choose to not air them at all.

              "The FCC practices censorship by extortion on radio licencees."

              Extortion? Are you sure that word properly expresses what you're trying to say?

              The airwaves belong to the people, all of the people, which means that there has to be a way for them to be shared. That's why broadcasters are granted a license to operate "in the public interest", not just granted a license because they outbid everyone else

              • The wiki is a useful source, but hardly definitive, especially on controversial items. I agree the term "censorship" is abused, much as "piracy" in a software context is.

                Please check a more traditional source of defintions, like a print dictionary.

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