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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.

  • I guess slashdot would be on the blacklist (Score:2, Informative)

    by crummyname (977083) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:28PM (#15732479)
    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)
    (Last Journal: Wednesday September 28 2005, @12:05PM)
    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)
    (http://slashdot.org/~davidwr/journal/ | Last Journal: Friday November 09, @09:19PM)
    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....

  • How effective is it? (Score:1)

    by in2mind (988476) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:34PM (#15732536)
    (http://in2mind.blogspot.com/)
    While the block seems to have comewith the reasoning as 'Security',its still possible to access these blogs anyway.

    http://www.pkblogs.com/ [pkblogs.com] is a very easy way to access blogspot page.
    Opens any X.blogspot.com page.
    Tried my own blog...opens fine....:)

    The usual anonymizer.com also works...

  • 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! :-)

  • Payoff (Score:1)

    by eronysis (928181) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:36PM (#15732559)
    I would expect to see some large network launch a large Weblog community intended for soley in country use and advertising. My dollar is this was a payout by the owners of the above mnetioned service. This just smells of dirty money.

  • Optimism (Score:2)

    by Savage-Rabbit (308260) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:39PM (#15732578)
    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.

    Wow, what an ambitious task. Perhaps those Indian censors try to make the river Ganges flow up hill while they are at it.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • If you were making censorship laws, what would YOU allow a judge to order someone to not disclose? Yes, we are talking about prior restraint.

    In the USA, judges have the power to issue prior restraint when the person who has the knowledge obtained in on the condition of non-disclosure. For example, a former employer can gag me from spilling corporate secrets. Ditto spilling state secrets if I have a security clearance, or spilling info form a Grand Jury investigation if I was in the hearing room.

    In the USA, judges can also restrain you from posting obscene materials or child pornography, as those are illegal to publish under just about any circumstances.

    In some countries, of course, the government has more prior restraint power.

    So, Slashdotters, how much if any prior restraint would you allow if you were making the rules?

  • Indian Jones? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Racher (34432) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:42PM (#15732605)
    Did anyone else read that as "Indian Jones Censoring Websites"

    Throw me the laptop, I'll throw you the link!

  • Indiana Jones (Score:1, Redundant)

    by mobby_6kl (668092) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:45PM (#15732624)
    Uh, looks like my English parser failed me again, from the first glance I assumed the headline said "Indiana Jones", until I realized the absurdity after reading the summary.

    Why aren't they censoring Myspace though? It's a much more serious threat to any civilized society than Blogspot, porn, or terrorists.

  • 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.)

  • This is a bad thing? (Score:1)

    by gravyface (592485) on Monday July 17 2006, @01:56PM (#15732709)
    "...Unfortunately, Blogspot and TypePad are the targets till now."
    Oh no! No more blogs? Hrmm.. wait a second...

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

    by MikeRT (947531) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:05PM (#15732759)
    (http://www.codemonkeyramblings.com/)
    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)
      (http://slashdot.org/)
      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].
      [ Parent ]

    • 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.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Democracy sure does equal freedom by identity0 (Score:2) Monday July 17 2006, @05:33PM
    • There is no difference by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) (Score:3) Monday July 17 2006, @07:48PM
    • Re:Uh... wow. by JesseMcDonald (Score:2) Monday July 17 2006, @03:11PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

  • Censorship in India (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bayankaran (446245) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:10PM (#15732783)
    (http://manasarovar.info/landing.htm)
    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)
    (http://www.monash.com/blogs.html)
    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.

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

    by nigham (792777) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:12PM (#15732809)
    (http://yavin4.anshul.info/)
    ...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]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

  • Temporary? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2006, @02:18PM (#15732856)
    One rumour about this is that it is a temporary ban. That there's some sort of government action happening in the next 48 hours to shut down a militant/terrorist group and this is to curtail their communications.

    Another possibility is some sort of retaliation for the Mumbai bombing.

    Regardless, only rumours at the moment. So take with as large a grain of salt as you choose.

  • Holy cow! (Score:2, Funny)

    by eebra82 (907996) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:18PM (#15732857)
    (http://www.insidebet.com/)
    This sounds like a job for Zapp Brannigan! Quick, Kif, to the shag mobile!

  • This is quick (Score:3, Funny)

    by cyfer2000 (548592) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:21PM (#15732892)
    (http://xyfer.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday July 24, @09:00AM)
    China and India just opened their border about 10 days ago [boston.com], now India has learnt something from China, they are really quick.

  • Annoying story title (Score:1)

    by tont0r (868535) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:27PM (#15732934)
    I first read it as 'Indiana Jones in China Censors". Damn my simple brain.

  • Re: TFA (Score:1)

    by slack_prad (942084) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:29PM (#15732950)
    (Last Journal: Saturday March 03 2007, @04:33AM)
    India != China

  • 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

  • Easy way to get around online censorship (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2006, @02:39PM (#15733051)
    As always, for a solution to all your censorship problems, see this [jmarshall.com]. The beta version supports JavaScript too.

  • Does this bother anyone? (Score:1)

    by andrewd18 (989408) on Monday July 17 2006, @02:58PM (#15733199)
    (http://nextgen.no-ip.org/)
    "from the keeping-up-with-the-wangs department" Next thing I know the IT department will mark Slashdot as off-limits for objectionable content...
  • I think I need a bigger font on my RSS reader...

  • in the name of security (Score:2, Insightful)

    by anivararavind (825859) on Monday July 17 2006, @03:15PM (#15733333)
    (http://anivar.movingrepublic.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday October 31 2004, @01:06AM)
    Every ban Govt proposes is in the name of controlling terrorists. There are such unclarified reports this time too. It is very same as denying public water supply in the name of terrorists are used to drink it. This also shows that Govt of India & CERT-IN did'nt learn anything from the past experience of banning yahoo! Groups in the name of militant Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) of the Khasi tribe, started a mailinglist named kynhun. The popularity popularity and visibility went up by leaps and bounds instantaneously, despite it being blocked by all ISPs! Clearly, you can't ban anything on the internet. [thehoot.org] More than a censorship it violates Communication rights of the people. see full post at moving republic [movingrepublic.org]

  • At first glance... (Score:2)

    by jferris (908786) on Monday July 17 2006, @03:19PM (#15733372)
    (http://www.randominnovation.com/)
    I swore it said "Indiana Jones in China Censoring Websites". I was about to throw up a little in my mouth...

  • Where do you draw the line? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BGA (28170) on Monday July 17 2006, @03:25PM (#15733405)
    (http://www.bug-br.org.br/)
    It doesn't matter much how you view this. Nation-wide State enforced censorship (being it what is made in China, in India or even in the US) is something that does not look like very democratic.

    So where do you draw the line? When can we stop calling India the biggest democracy in the world? Should we really do that or this is nothing compared to anywhere else in the world?

  • Ohh. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PyrotekNX (548525) on Monday July 17 2006, @03:30PM (#15733446)
    I thought this was an announcemnt for a new Indiana Jones movie in China.
    But seriously, I think this trend of web censorship is just the beginning. Blood sucking politicians enjoy having control over the prolitariat. Controlling the media, whether its newspapers, magazines, tv, news, etc are all signs of despotism. Isn't that right Rupert.

  • The reasons (Score:1)

    by Jack Sparrow (748129) on Monday July 17 2006, @03:48PM (#15733581)
    It might be easy to criticize this from outside but people need to understand a few things.

    1. They want to block access to sites that can potentially give rise to violence.
    2. India has a huge muslim population and some of them are fundamentalists. The patience of the rest usually is very volatile after such attacks. Hatred preaching websites can be extremely effective to trigger violence from any side as seen in the past.
    3. If #2 happens, the number of casualties is a lot more than the event that triggered it (also proved by recent history).
    4. The chances of people reacting to such sites greatly reduce as time goes on. I will not be surprised if all the bans are lifted soon.
    5. If they decide to ban websites that preach violence, I do not see any problem with that. It is not like they want to shield people from what is going on in the outside world. They just want to prevent more casualties. Equating this action with what China does is ignorance.

  • Yet to see... (Score:1)

    by bruno.fatia (989391) on Monday July 17 2006, @04:35PM (#15733946)
    (http://www.trancemirror.com/)
    A ruling like that work. Soviet? Gone. Nazi? Gone. Kings? Gone. The ending happens to be a little worse than the start; this just reminded me of Luis XVI.
  • i think 99% of slashdotters would agree that a site promoting the human trafficking of minors should be banned

    i also think 99% slashdotters would agree that a site promoting basic awareness of sexually transmitted diseases should not be banned

    the point is, censorship is not the issue, WHAT is being censored is the issue

    even the most rabid "censorship is evil" idealist would agree that some really nasty content should be squashed. folks: i said really nasty content. i'm talking about sites promoting the human trafficking of minors, for example

    and it's not like the issue is black and white either. there is always a grey area. ALWAYS. there will always be sites that some think should be banned, and some don't. always. forever. welcome to reality: the issue is not really simple

    and guess what idealists? that's life. there is no simple ideal you can adhere to, that doesn't have some exceptions. life is complex and full of nuance. you can't beat a subject matter with a simpleminded adherence to a simple concept: "all censorship is evil" and expect it that to work in reality. and admitting that fact does NOT mean you accept all censorship. admitting you think a site promoting human trafficking of minors should be banned does NOT mean you accept that a site promoting democracy should be banned

    because again: WHAT is being censored is the issue, NOT the issue of censorship itself

    it's ridiculous to debate the existence of censorship. it's NOT ridiculous (and more it is more effective) to debate WHAT is being censored

  • Indiana Jones Censored in China?! (Score:2)

    by Jackie_Chan_Fan (730745) on Monday July 17 2006, @05:56PM (#15734403)
    Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwh.. Forget that shit!

  • Strangely, I can still access these sites.. (Score:2, Informative)

    by MasJ (594702) on Monday July 17 2006, @09:34PM (#15735276)
    (http://www.emuparadise.org/)

    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 ?

  • power in the hands of morons (Score:1)

    by ashwinds (743227) on Monday July 17 2006, @10:25PM (#15735426)
    ...and they feel compelled to show that its in their hands and go out and do daft things. I saw mumbai.blogspot.com in google's cache and its hardly anythign which must be banned - instead they ought to link to it from their dingy no-info sites.

    These politician and bureaucrat low lifes make me sick.

  • blocks removed (Score:1)

    by wireframe01 (981462) on Tuesday July 18 2006, @06:28AM (#15735469)
    Amen!

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

    by beaverfever (584714) on Tuesday July 18 2006, @08:44AM (#15736056)
    (http://www.davidconnell.com/)
    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.

  • Indiana? (Score:2)

    by Lord_Dweomer (648696) on Tuesday July 18 2006, @10:56AM (#15737068)
    (http://haltingpoint.blogspot.com/)
    Did anybody read that title as "Indiana Jones..."?

  • Re:I guess this means... (Score:2)

    by thePig (964303) <rajmohan_h@yahoo.com> on Monday July 17 2006, @01:51PM (#15732667)
    (Last Journal: Sunday June 11 2006, @10:41AM)
    I am not too sure.
    See, it depends on the view on democracy.
    In my view, it means that the country is ruled by people selected by its citizens, has a very stable constitution which can be used as a safeguard against any mismanagement of power.
    i.e. all.

    The remaining things, freedom, privacy etc is there in the package, but there can be _huge_ differences in how it is seen and viewed.
    For example - if you see, individual freedom is given a lot of importance in India too, but not to the level which is afforded in USA. an average indian, in general, are very different from an average american. He doesnt view freedom as all-encompassing. Rather it is expected that freedom is all very important, but it shouldnt fly in the face of tradition or shouldnt be allowed to hurt the feelings of minorities or this or that.

    So, do not judge another person by your standards, and everything is fine.

    [ Parent ]

  • Re:Burgeoning Islamist Republic of India (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Apro+im (241275) on Monday July 17 2006, @06:37PM (#15734584)
    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 has existed for a long time as a country where religions, in particular Hinduism and Islam, have lived side by side. (This is admitedly in part because many Islamic nationalist left in 1947 to form a Muslim nation.) Of course, there are religious tensions, but in fact they're at most moderately greater than the cultural tensions. (It may surprise people to know that India is not a big homogenous culture - I know it would surprise the hell out of Hollywood, where often characters of one cultural background are given Indian-sounding names of a completely different origin.) Remember - India is a predominantly Hindu country which elected a Muslim president and a Sikh prime minister.
    [ Parent ]
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