So what’s the status on India’s blogspot blockade?

So what’s the status on India’s blogspot blockade? | Jul 18th 2006

1) Since Friday or around that Blogspot has been progressively blocked by all ISPs. Typepad and Geocities too, depending upon the ISP.

2) That no explanation was issued by either CERT-IN or DoT (Department of Telecom) or any of the ISPs. We deserve to know why this is happening and who is accountable.

3) On Monday we got to know for a fact that the DoT did issue orders to block some websites.

4) On Tuesday morning the papers gave us a list of websites, 17 or 18, which the DoT sought to be blocked. There is no information on why these were sought to be blocked.

5) Amongst these are four Blogspot-hosted blogs:

http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com
http://commonfolk.blogspot.com
http:/commonense.blogspot.com
http://princesskimberley.logspot.com [spelling dispute here]

6) Today Dr Gulshan Rai told a reporter (see it in the papers tomorrow) that Blogspot as a whole was not sought to be blocked, but only the four blogs above.

7) WHAT are these blogs about? Why does the DoT want hem blocked? Why should I not read them? Why was this announcement not made earlier, on Friday itself, that they are blocking these blogs?

8) WHY have sites like clickatell.com, dalitstan.com, hinduunity.org and hinduhumanrights.org also on the list? Is there any EVIDENCE that these sites are against national security or is there any precedent of these sites causing violence through hate speech?

9) WHEN will the en-masse blockade on blogspot, typepad and geocities be lifted and who will take responsibility (and issue an apology) for the inconvenience caused o so many since Friday?

10) EXACTLY the same thing happened in 2003. The DoT wanted http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kynhun blocked and the ISPs didn’t know how to do it. So they blocked http://groups.yahoo.com, resulting in uproar from thousands of Yahoo! Groups users in India. ISPs were then told by the govt to work around it and block only ‘kynhun’ rather than Yahoo! Groups as a whole. And ISPs did it. In three years neither CERT-IN, nor DoT, nor ISPs have learnt any lessons. In a country which is massively expanding e-governance, internet security is in the hands of such morons. Is it safe to be online at all in India?

Previous posts:
Sleep with princess Kimberly, and expose the left
Bloggers against censorship
“Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?”

Posted in Blogging

18 Comments »

trying to block websites is not new. They did it with geocities some years ago, if I remember correctly and the controversy related to ‘Final Solution’ is well known! Can we really accept censorship is a different and quite debatable issue. Update: Maybe I am right…

Pingback by My life, my words — July 18, 2006 @ 5:08 pm
but good sense demands that we establish context. Apparently the DOT’s sent out a list of web sites it wants blocked to ISPs and one of the casualties is blogspot.com. Shivam Vij, who is a reasonably erudite blogger/reporter, has some coverage here and here. Whats happened here is that the DOT sought to block a small set of blogs (I hear there were four) and the prodigous geniuses that run our ISPs decided to shave off some work and block off the whole domain. The reason for that is probably nothing more

Pingback by Really clever title — July 18, 2006 @ 6:12 pm
does

Pingback by Death Ends Fun — July 18, 2006 @ 6:46 pm
“In three years neither CERT-IN, nor DoT, nor ISPs have learnt any lessons. In a country which is massively expanding e-governance, internet security is in the hands of such morons.”

Well said Shivam.

Comment by Mridula — July 18, 2006 @ 9:49 pm
This is amazing, does anybody in India care about free speech and right to information? A similar move in Europe or America would have caused a national outrage and all I am seeing here is a weak protest by a few bloggers.

Who authorized CERT-IN to decide what Indians need to read and not read? If they have been given such authority, what is the difference between India and China or North Korea?

Can this be challenged in the Supreme court or a smaller court? I am not legal expert, can somebody with knowledge in that area post his views. Maybe Indian citizens can get a ruling from the court that prohibits the government departments from wielding such powers.

Comment by Ajay — July 19, 2006 @ 1:09 am
well ajay, is the current national response more in tune to what u were expecting?

Comment by marilyn — July 19, 2006 @ 1:42 am
more or less, Indians seem to live more like subjects of the Govt, than as citizens of a country,

I just visited front pages of top Indian news sites like Indiatimes.com, ndtv.com, rediff.com and ibnlive.com, Only ibnlive has a small link on the right side to a story about bloggers being pissed of with the govt about their blogs being blocked by the govt. No news about the the list of sites that fill 2 odd pages that have also been blocked

This is pathetic,

Comment by Ajay — July 19, 2006 @ 2:22 am
Pl. check http://www.physorg.com/news72460837.html too.
swarup

Comment by gaddeswarup — July 19, 2006 @ 5:37 am
We should some how make ISPs correct their mistake. We created a forum called http://freespeech.desihub.com

Lets share our thoughts and see what we can do. My blog at Desihub is not yet blocked, but never know Indian ISPs might knock down all the domains who provide blogging feature.

It gets worse if they block entire desihub.com, which provides more than blogging to consumers. Hope we can educate our ISPs together and make them learn their mistakes!!

Bala
http://bala.desihub.com/blog

Comment by Bala — July 19, 2006 @ 7:09 am
For those who still have absolutely no clue as to what I’m so bothered about, these links should give you some idea how the entire situation unfolded: Blogger blocked by some ISPs in India? What is Up with Blogspot (Blogger) Sites in India? So what’s the status on India’s blogspot blockade? Here’s more mainstream news coverage of the whole mess. Feel free to add to the list in case you come across something new. It’s good to know that not everyone’s sitting on their hands doing nothing though! A number of people have filed

Pingback by Life, or something like it. — July 19, 2006 @ 3:26 pm
typepad still down

Comment by TheLearnedMan — July 21, 2006 @ 5:22 pm
[...] My previous posts on this issue: The blame game So what’s the status of India’s blogspot blockade? Sleep with Princess Kimberly, and expose the left “Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?” [...]

Pingback by Censorship should be used in the rarest of rare cases at national highway — July 21, 2006 @ 9:46 pm
holds us in contempt for seeking to understand why? Why? Why should we let you get away with this? On what basis did you conjure up that list? We looked at the sites you hid from us. We laughed at some, scratched our heads in puzzlement at others. What was so repulsive about them? The people who ran those sites came to talk to us. They were civil. They were puzzled too. We listened as they explained what they understood. We hear of little birdies atwitter. This ban is just a smokescreen for a sinister operation, they tweet.

Pingback by Kiran Jonnalagadda’s Blog — jace.seacrow.com — July 23, 2006 @ 4:43 am
holds us in contempt for seeking to understand why? Why? Why should we let you get away with this? On what basis did you conjure up that list? We looked at the sites you hid from us. We laughed at some, scratched our heads in puzzlement at others. What was so repulsive about them? The people who ran those sites came to talk to us. They were civil. They were puzzled too. We listened as they explained what they understood. We hear of little birdies atwitter. This ban is just a smokescreen for a sinister operation, they tweet.

Pingback by moving republic — July 23, 2006 @ 8:15 am
holds us in contempt for seeking to understand why? Why? Why should we let you get away with this? On what basis did you conjure up that list? We looked at the sites you hid from us. We laughed at some, scratched our heads in puzzlement at others. What was so repulsive about them? The people who ran those sites came to talk to us. They were civil. They were puzzled too. We listened as they explained what they understood. We hear of little birdies atwitter. This ban is just a smokescreen for a sinister operation, they tweet.

Pingback by moving Republic — July 23, 2006 @ 8:45 am
we are back….

Comment by mineguruji — July 23, 2006 @ 10:50 am
“fundamental rights”. When a medium that produces quality entertainment as good as this is will get blocked, I wonder whether I should laugh or cry. And when it is certain that they wanted to ban few of the blogs, (more here) but blocked entire domain, and they repeat the same mistake done few years ago, I am sure India’s administrative intelligence(&ISPs) becomes even more laughing stock!! I wish I am watching a senseless ironic comedy. Let me take a break.

Pingback by Lens — September 12, 2006 @ 8:15 am
[...] Previous posts/stories by me on internet censorship: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 [...]

Pingback by The Discreet Charms of the Nanny State at National Highway — October 13, 2006 @ 6:12 pm

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trying to block websites is not new. They did it with geocities some years ago, if I remember correctly and the controversy related to ‘Final Solution’ is well known! Can we really accept censorship is a different and quite debatable issue. Update: Maybe I am right…

Pingback by My life, my words — July 18, 2006 @ 5:08 pm

but good sense demands that we establish context. Apparently the DOT’s sent out a list of web sites it wants blocked to ISPs and one of the casualties is blogspot.com. Shivam Vij, who is a reasonably erudite blogger/reporter, has some coverage here and here. Whats happened here is that the DOT sought to block a small set of blogs (I hear there were four) and the prodigous geniuses that run our ISPs decided to shave off some work and block off the whole domain. The reason for that is probably nothing more

Pingback by Really clever title — July 18, 2006 @ 6:12 pm

does

Pingback by Death Ends Fun — July 18, 2006 @ 6:46 pm

“In three years neither CERT-IN, nor DoT, nor ISPs have learnt any lessons. In a country which is massively expanding e-governance, internet security is in the hands of such morons.”

Well said Shivam.

Comment by Mridula — July 18, 2006 @ 9:49 pm

This is amazing, does anybody in India care about free speech and right to information? A similar move in Europe or America would have caused a national outrage and all I am seeing here is a weak protest by a few bloggers.

Who authorized CERT-IN to decide what Indians need to read and not read? If they have been given such authority, what is the difference between India and China or North Korea?

Can this be challenged in the Supreme court or a smaller court? I am not legal expert, can somebody with knowledge in that area post his views. Maybe Indian citizens can get a ruling from the court that prohibits the government departments from wielding such powers.

Comment by Ajay — July 19, 2006 @ 1:09 am

well ajay, is the current national response more in tune to what u were expecting?

Comment by marilyn — July 19, 2006 @ 1:42 am

more or less, Indians seem to live more like subjects of the Govt, than as citizens of a country,

I just visited front pages of top Indian news sites like Indiatimes.com, ndtv.com, rediff.com and ibnlive.com, Only ibnlive has a small link on the right side to a story about bloggers being pissed of with the govt about their blogs being blocked by the govt. No news about the the list of sites that fill 2 odd pages that have also been blocked

This is pathetic,

Comment by Ajay — July 19, 2006 @ 2:22 am

Pl. check http://www.physorg.com/news72460837.html too.
swarup

Comment by gaddeswarup — July 19, 2006 @ 5:37 am

We should some how make ISPs correct their mistake. We created a forum called http://freespeech.desihub.com

Lets share our thoughts and see what we can do. My blog at Desihub is not yet blocked, but never know Indian ISPs might knock down all the domains who provide blogging feature.

It gets worse if they block entire desihub.com, which provides more than blogging to consumers. Hope we can educate our ISPs together and make them learn their mistakes!!

Bala
http://bala.desihub.com/blog

Comment by Bala — July 19, 2006 @ 7:09 am

For those who still have absolutely no clue as to what I’m so bothered about, these links should give you some idea how the entire situation unfolded: Blogger blocked by some ISPs in India? What is Up with Blogspot (Blogger) Sites in India? So what’s the status on India’s blogspot blockade? Here’s more mainstream news coverage of the whole mess. Feel free to add to the list in case you come across something new. It’s good to know that not everyone’s sitting on their hands doing nothing though! A number of people have filed

Pingback by Life, or something like it. — July 19, 2006 @ 3:26 pm

typepad still down

Comment by TheLearnedMan — July 21, 2006 @ 5:22 pm

[...] My previous posts on this issue: The blame game So what’s the status of India’s blogspot blockade? Sleep with Princess Kimberly, and expose the left “Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?” [...]

Pingback by Censorship should be used in the rarest of rare cases at national highway — July 21, 2006 @ 9:46 pm

holds us in contempt for seeking to understand why? Why? Why should we let you get away with this? On what basis did you conjure up that list? We looked at the sites you hid from us. We laughed at some, scratched our heads in puzzlement at others. What was so repulsive about them? The people who ran those sites came to talk to us. They were civil. They were puzzled too. We listened as they explained what they understood. We hear of little birdies atwitter. This ban is just a smokescreen for a sinister operation, they tweet.

Pingback by Kiran Jonnalagadda’s Blog — jace.seacrow.com — July 23, 2006 @ 4:43 am

Pingback by moving republic — July 23, 2006 @ 8:15 am

Pingback by moving Republic — July 23, 2006 @ 8:45 am

we are back….

Comment by mineguruji — July 23, 2006 @ 10:50 am

“fundamental rights”. When a medium that produces quality entertainment as good as this is will get blocked, I wonder whether I should laugh or cry. And when it is certain that they wanted to ban few of the blogs, (more here) but blocked entire domain, and they repeat the same mistake done few years ago, I am sure India’s administrative intelligence(&ISPs) becomes even more laughing stock!! I wish I am watching a senseless ironic comedy. Let me take a break.

Pingback by Lens — September 12, 2006 @ 8:15 am

[...] Previous posts/stories by me on internet censorship: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 [...]

Pingback by The Discreet Charms of the Nanny State at National Highway — October 13, 2006 @ 6:12 pm