Clandestine Internet Censorship in India

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."

Comments

Another grey area...

[NotQuiteReal]

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 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...

[wannabgeek]

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.

Re:Another grey area...

[Max von H.]

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:Another grey area...

[shreevatsa]

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.

Re:Another grey area...

[It's a thing]

Here in America, that's the exact opposite of the goal of school. http://johntaylorgatto.com/

Re:Another grey area...

[scheme]

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 like that in the last 60 years so people alive still remember having family injured or killed for religious reasons.

Northern Ireland has a relatively educated populace but it's still had quite of a bit of catholic vs. protestant strife so I don't think that education explains it all.

Re:Another grey area...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

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" of some speaker is just nonsense. It's just another way of saying they were possessed by demons or some other supernatural influences. They weren't.

A talented and devious speaker says words meant to stir people into a frenzy. Big whup. Why should the rest of us lose our rights? Who gets to decide what's hate speech? What if someone protests vehemently against animal experimenters or corporate power or homosexuality or infant circumcision? Are they going to get locked up for being anti-science, anti-capitalist, anti-homosexual or anti-semetic? It's peoples actions that are illegal, not their opinions, expressed or not. I'll tolerate any opinion if the alternative means having ThoughtCrime on the books.

Theft is against our principles and isn't tolerated, calling for hate and murder shouldn't be either.

Soliciting murder is against the law. Calling for people to hate someone or something isn't. You might not like it, but people do have a right not to like, and even hate things. It's like that old Tom Lehrer joke: "I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that."

People are free to hate. Happiness and love for your fellow man are not mandatory. Do we need to have "Good Citizen" inspectors that scrutinise people for any "anti-social" charaterstics? What you're proposing is mandatory political correctness. I'm sorry, but I would rather have my right to be offensive over your "right" not to be offended.

The reason doesn't matter...

[Darundal]

...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. Personally, it is sad that many other countries in the world do not have their citizens rights as plainly defined as we do here in the states. However, considering how much good that is doing us, perhaps that isn't quite enough either...

Re:The reason doesn't matter...

[fishbowl]

>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 reasonable to some people, but it is completely contrary to the entire premise of the founding principle that drove the First Amendment into existence.

I have personally had my rights abridged by action related to this rule, and the experience has caused me to cease my support of the rulemaking process in the Federal Government.

I have personally been cited, had automatic weapons pointed at me, and threatened with up to five years in prison for doing nothing at all except peaceable assembly among a very loosely affiliated group. It will be impossible to convince me that this is not a total violation of my rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, but the government has consistently inisted otherwise. Until CFR 251 and 261 are changed such that they do not abridge the right of the people to peaceably assemble on public land, I will not accept the premise that no fundamental loss of civil rights has been suffered by the people.

http://prop1.org/rainbow/

Maybe you have not had the diligence to see your rights being abridged, or maybe you have not had the misfortune of being among a group that was targeted by the government, but that doesn't mean everyone has been so careless or so lucky.

Not necessarily bad

[nbharatvarma]

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 upcoming elections or something like that.

We don't have problems with corporates trying to pry our fundamental rights as yet by controlling the government because the state has very good representation from every sort of background instead of just one party. But for the same reason, we have other problems.

I am pretty sure that from the way things are done in India correctly, there is no way the government can do anything reduce our fundemental rights. There are too many cross-checks for that.

Re:Not necessarily bad

[aquiltar]

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 as some kind of diversity. 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. 80% of Indians are Hindu, but there is a 14% Muslim population, with a strong history of Hindu-Muslim conflict. The fact that India has a Muslim president when there are religious riots on a very regular basis is hence a lot more significant than a Jew taking on a comparable post in the US.

Alternate link

[Skapare]

Here is an alternate link since it appears the original site has been emptied.

Article Text

[cyxxon]

Had trouble getting this, others obviously as well, so here it is.

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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/ 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/ 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/ 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

Re:Interesting conincidence_

[Xyrus]

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~

Re:In the US you can freely spew "hate speech"

[Darundal]

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...

Re:In the US you can freely spew "hate speech"

[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".

Re:In the US you can freely spew "hate speech"

[Shihar]

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 laws, not DC) in the e-mails that have been released to date. While he is in trouble in congress for ethical violations, he isn't in any legal trouble yet. In order to nail Folly with a crime, he has to do more then be a sketchy bastard. He has to be taking blatant active steps to get a kid to go have sex with him before he is in any sort of legal trouble. So, he can legally tell a 15 year old buy that he wants to ram him in the ass all night long, but that isn't illegal. He needs to tell a 15 year old boy to come to his house so that they can have sex in order to get into trouble.

I am not saying that the US is the most liberal democracy in the world. However, when it comes to free speech laws, the US is the most liberal nation in the world. Hate speech is a-okay unless you are advocating an imminent crime. Slander and libel are close to impossible prosecute, and against public figures it is almost literally impossible.

The only three possible exceptions I can think of that US has in its free speech laws are copyright violations, campaign contribution spending limits, and limits on holding multiple demonstrations in the same area. If you toss copyright into the real of free speech you could make the argument that the US could be more liberal in its speech laws, but even then copyright violations are civil violations that you can not go to jail for. The only other 'liberal' loophole is campaign donations. There is a limit to donations to campaigns and you could argue that this is inhibiting free speech, though even in that regards the US would still be considered more liberal then most of Europe. Finally, the US does prevent rival demonstrations from being held in the same area. A pile of bible nuts can't march around a gay pride parade telling them that they are going to be damned to hell, and a pile of democrats can't start shouting and waving signs during a Republican rally.

If you want to march around the White House with a BUSH IS A FUCKING NAZI SIGN and then cover the sign with swastikas, you can, and people do. The secret service will probably watch you like a hawk, but so long as you don't do anything stupid like block traffic, you will be fine. I have been to gay pride rallies with bible nuts next door waving signs about everyone being damned to hell, and to anti-KKK counter rallies next to a bunch of sad sack of shit "white power" rallies. Really, there are a lot of things to trash the US on, but free speech limits isn't one of them.