India Descends Into Extreme Internet Censorship
from the censorship-in-effect dept
A year and a half ago, we noted some new laws and plans for laws in India that would likely lead to widespread censorship of the internet in that country, and a commenter on that post just alerted us to the news that some of these ridiculous new laws have gone into effect. They’re incredibly vague, and get the liability question backwards, demanding that ISPs proactively police and remove content that is “objectionable,” “disparaging,” “harassing,” “blasphemous” and “hateful.” Talk about vague. Suddenly, service providers have incentive to over aggressively block all sorts of stuff, just to avoid liability. The law also requires sites to remove content within 36 hours if law enforcement says it’s objectionable — without even notifying whoever put that content up. Think how easy this is to abuse by anyone in government who just doesn’t like some type of content. Such a law is clearly a censorship law.
Bizarrely, the Indian government insists that there’s nothing wrong with these laws, and that they’re “comparable to any international cyber laws.” Here’s the thing: the spokesperson is right if you include copyright laws. Copyright laws, such as the DMCA, are really the only equivalent international laws (if you’re not talking about some place like China, which the Indian government insists it’s not) that allow for such a takedown upon notice. So, realistically, it appears that India is justifying its broad censorship laws with US copyright laws. Of course, we’ve been saying for a while that more countries would do this, but copyright maximalists continue to insist that’s crazy.
Filed Under: censorship, free speech, india, internet
Comments on “India Descends Into Extreme Internet Censorship”
I would shut my ISP down
Frankly, if I ran an ISP over there, I would shut it down the minute the law took effect. When asked why, I would say that every website potentially falls into one of the categories listed and it was just too much liability to take.
Re: I would shut my ISP down
Agreed on that… personally, I see a lot of ISP’s shutting down or being shut down under these laws when they refuse to censor discussions on all sorts of things.
Re: I would shut my ISP down
I’d commit as much of it as I could afford to TOR servers and exit nodes.
Dumb foreign country enacts dumb foreign law = it’s the fault of the US and their copyright law.
Thanks for clearing that up for us.
Re: Re:
India is just “harmonizing” their laws with proposed US laws.
Re: Re:
Did you just label the entirety of India as a “dumb foreign country”?
Are you really that ethnocentrically stupid?
Re: Re: I guess he is
But typical…
Re: Re: Re: I guess he is
You’re saying it’s typical of this particular AC to be an ethnocentric douchebag?
Darry….I think I agree with you?
Re: Re: Re:2 I guess he is
“Darry….I think I agree with you?”
maybe the world is coming to an end….
Re: Re: Re:3 I guess he is
“maybe the world is coming to an end….”
…in 5 months…THE RAPTURE PART 2!!!!
Re: Re: Re:4 I guess he is
Nah, maybe even though we generally disagree w/Darryl and his firmly declared war on English syntax and spelling, we can still agree w/him that insulting entire other nations isn’t the best of plans.
See? We CAN all just get along, Rodney!
Re: Re: Re:5 I guess he is
and his firmly declared war on English syntax and spelling
LOL…
See?
Re: Re: Re:6 I guess he is
See what?
Re: Re: Re:7 I guess he is
He says you’re missing an apostrophe. “hes” should be “he’s”.
Re: Re: Re:8 I guess he is
It’s “his” denoting his ownership of his war on syntax/spelling.
That isn’t an error, it’s as intended….
Re: Re: Re:7 I guess he is "See what", see?
See what?
what? your “See?”, of course.
I was just trying to refer you to your own interesting syntax.
You see, “see what?” is valid syntax, but “see?” is not, IMHO.
In other words, what I wanted you to see, is your use of a ? after your see (ie, see?) and was trying to enquire what that ment?
Re: Re: Re:8 I guess he is "See what", see?
“In other words, what I wanted you to see, is your use of a ? after your see (ie, see?) and was trying to enquire what that ment?”
Ah, I get what you’re saying now. Perhaps there’s a country vernacular barrier here. “See?” in the States is used in place of “Do you see what I mean?” or something similar.
Vernacular, probably, rather than a syntax error.
Re: Re: Re:9 I guess he is "See what", see?
Yes, it is part of our vernacular as well, that I was just being factious. See?
Australian accent, also has the rising itonation (the end of the word is spoken with a higher pitch than the start of the word or sentence) to denote a question or enquiry.
Re: Re: Re:10 I guess he is "See what", see?
Yes, it is part of our vernacular as well, that I was just being factious. See?
That’s “facetious”, see?
Australian accent, also has the rising itonation (the end of the word is spoken with a higher pitch than the start of the word or sentence) to denote a question or enquiry.
The US has that too. Now what is all this reasonableness and making sense from you? Is this going to be habitual now?
Re: Re: Re:
Yes, I just maligned an entire country. Not their government, but their entire country. And your Grandma too- I maligned her as well. I didn’t make that very clear either, but I meant to.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Dumb anonymous coward posts dumb comment.
Thanks for clearing that up for us.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
That’s an insult to dumb people.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Wow.. I’m also in agreement with Darryl.. wtf is happening today?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Maybe the one commenting today is Larry’s other brother Darryl…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN6UAzYY8qg
Re: Re: Re:
“Dumb foreign country enacts dumb law”
When we talk about a “dumb foreign country”, we usually refer to the USA. Present company excluded, except Darryl.
It appears India is trying to catch up.
wow
Maybe they really will ban Sita Sings the Blues from the internet. At least in India. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/sitasingstheblues/
One of the great things about the movie’s free distribution model is it prevented censorship. But if your regime is repressive enough….
Re: wow
Nice publicity grab. This totally about you.
Re: Re: wow
… not totally about her, but she managed to stay on topic and contribute to the conversation by using her own personal experience to describe the possible problems with such “laws”.
I’d call that a win-win in any book.
P.S. Thanks Nina for the link to the petition. Many of the comments over there really show the intolerance of some to any views but their own, while a few others “get the message” about people having different points of view on the same subject being normal (or at least it should be).
Re: wow
I used to think Hinduism was less prone to fanaticism then Christianism or Islam. Seems I woz wrong, they’ve all got their share of crazies.
Re: Re: wow
A lot of the laws being passed in India today are because the corporation Tata runs the country. Regulatory capture and corruption doesn’t even begin to describe what is going on there. It’s on a whole new level that the US is beginning to approach at this point.
Re: Re: Re: wow
Corporation Tata?
How can they do such a thing?
Re: Re: wow
I forgive you even though you just maligned something that sounded vaguely like a reference to my religion.
Re: Re: wow
Yeah, Hindu crazies are no more or less crazy than their Christian or Muslim counterparts. Fundies the world over are the same class of d-bags.
In the beginning...
In the beginning, there was nothing. Then, there was the internet and the light of information shined on the world. The evil gub’ment looked and said that light was no good. Only THEY were to provide the true light. So, the evil gub’ment took it upon themselves to protect and save those who could not look upon the light. Only approved light by the gub’ment was allowed to shine… and then the world went dark again, overcome by the evil that is gub’ment.
Re: In the beginning...
Sounds like India is headed down the road of having access to a internet with no websites (light is on, but nobody is home).
The outcome of the new internet laws in India: Along with “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”, you can add “Browse no evil”.
“In the beginning, there was nothing. Then the Indian Government said, “Let there be light”. And there was still nothing but you could see it.”
Re: In the beginning...
So you’re saying those “thousand points of light” Reagan talked about were really just Cisco routers?
Re: Re: In the beginning...
So you’re saying those “thousand points of light” Reagan talked about were really just Cisco routers?
I thought it might be prudent at this juncture to point out that it was George Herbert Walker Bush (the older one) who coined that phrase.
I’m just waiting to hear reports of ISPs blocking content to the various government broadcasts and postings. After all, I’m sure there is someone out there who finds those government posts obscene and objectionable and thus the ISPs have to block them.
Mind you, it very may well cause issues in terms of getting much needed info to their people so I’m not saying it would be the BEST thing for them to do.
Non-protected free speech !!!
Dumb foreign country enacts dumb foreign law
It’s funny, but Mike posts a list of things that are going to be banned.
But copyright was not one of them. Mike just added that for effect.
Tell us Mike what difference is there between this law, and non-protected free speech laws that you have in the US ?
Like hate speech, or the incitement of crime ?
Oh wait, its ok for the US to have such laws that you live by, and go crying too at every opportunity, but it’s not ok for any other country to do it ?
Re: Non-protected free speech !!!
Hate speech is not an international law, copyright is. It’s also the only international law that the Indian government could be referencing when they say they’re “comparable to any international cyber laws.” That is the point Mike is making; India is using our crap-ass laws to justify their violations of human rights.
The US also doesn’t have any laws against “objectionable,” “disparaging,” or “blasphemous” speech (as much as they want to); and hate speech and harassment is vary limited.
Re: Re: Non-protected free speech !!!
copyright is not an international law, and most countries including USA have national laws against hate speech.
An international law implies the SAME exact law for each nation, that does not exist with copyright, nor does it exist with copyright.
(or most other things).
But to try to tie copyright to hate speech and typical laws regarding incitefull and hate type speech and acts is not right.
Especially considering the US thinks it leads the field in this area.
Having free speech, but still have non-protected speech.
So its ok for the US to do that but not some other country ?
Double standards ?
Re: Re: Re: Non-protected free speech !!!
“Fine, sparky. What other international law is analogous to India’s move, then?”
-Dark Helmet
“They’re incredibly vague, and get the liability question backwards, demanding that ISPs proactively police and remove content that is “objectionable,” “disparaging,” “harassing,” “blasphemous” and “hateful.” “
Masnick, this is why you are a laughingstock. That you pervert a foreign law regarding censorship. The spokesman didn’t say jack shit about copyright law, you did.
Every time you make one of these absurd conclusions that US copyright law is the root cause of a foreign governments censorship of of content that is “objectionable”, “disparaging,” “harassing,” “blasphemous” or “hateful” you look like an even bigger buffoon…. if that’s possible.
Re: Re:
Fine, sparky. What other international law is analogous to India’s move, then?
Re: Re: Re:
WOAH woah woah, dont ask him to think. Just say something so he can point out how stupid it is, say the opposite, or just drop a non-sequitur insult,
Re: Re:
Masnick, this is why you are a laughingstock. That you pervert a foreign law regarding censorship. The spokesman didn’t say jack shit about copyright law, you did.
Of course he didn’t say anything about copyright law. I thought that was evident from what I wrote up. But the only laws that I’m aware of that have similar liability issues are copyright laws, which is why it was relevant to bring up copyright law.
Every time you make one of these absurd conclusions that US copyright law is the root cause of a foreign governments censorship of of content that is “objectionable”, “disparaging,” “harassing,” “blasphemous” or “hateful” you look like an even bigger buffoon…. if that’s possible.
I find it odd that you need to insult everyone who disagrees with you. It’s as if you’re so unsure of your own arguments that you feel like you need to convince yourself. If you want to have a discussion, I’m happy to discuss. If you want to insist to insult me, I don’t see that as particular productive. It also seems to reflect a lot more poorly on you.
Anyway, nowhere did I say that US copyright law was the “root cause” of this, but I did point out that it appears Indian politicians may be using that aspect of copyright laws to justify this overreach into free speech.
You can disagree, but it would help if you actually provided a counterpoint, that ran further than calling me names and blatantly misrepresenting my position.
Re: Re:
this is why you are a laughingstock.
Pot, meet kettle.
Indian Govt do not actively monitor internet content. You won’t see FBI agents at school of a 13yr old who posted comments on Facebook. The reason they want to have some regulation is that approximately 2% of population from both Hindus and Muslims have the IQ level of “Anonymous Coward”. They can get offended for a cartoon or a Youtube video and start a riot. We have had entire city shutdown due to newspaper article about a minority community.
Re: Re:
I understand that, but the solution should not be to shut up the people out of fear of the ignorant, but rather to educate the ignorant, no? I have full faith that the people of India, ALL of them, can behave civilly and peacefully if given the right opportunity….
Re: Indian Govt do not actively monitor internet content.
You really believe that?
Re: Re: Indian Govt do not actively monitor internet content.
If you’re casting doubt over iBar’s first sentence, then yes, it’s a fair assumption that the Indian govt does not monitor Internet content.
They’re far too clueless (they wanted to ban a few blogs, and ended up blocking all of Blogspot and WordPress in the country) – this makes them all the more dangerous, but that’s a different discussion. The original point stands – they don’t actively monitor Internet content.
"objectionable," "disparaging," "harassing," "blasphemous" and "hateful."
So they are shutting down the internet.
Since when is the DMCA “international law”? Isn’t it just a US law (with an EU counterpart)?
…Well, alright, with PROTECT IP looming on the horizon, ICE will shut down every site worldwide that doesn’t comply, so I guess that makes US law de facto international law. (Except for the Pirate Bay, who regularly laugh off DMCA requests.)
Re: Re:
Which they should do, in my opinion.
Sounds Typical For India
It’s India ! Vague rules applied by vaguely responsible authorities. If you have the payoff, the laws are no problem, if you don’t… you’re out of luck until you get the payoff. And, of course, this recursively applies as you dive through the social strata – the ‘little’ guy can afford little opportunity (just local/private markets). Nothing new in this scheme.
Re: Sounds Typical For India
it’s sad to see racism raising it’s ugly head….
Re: Re: It's not racism...
India is plagued with a caste system, even if it was ‘officially’ abolished, it sill lingers in the mind and habits of about everyone.
Re: Re: Re: It's not racism...
India is plagued with a caste system
Just like the US is !!
Re: Re: Sounds Typical For India
And that’s just not politically correct, you know.
If the ISP’s are to proactively filter “objectionable” content how about they start with all India governmental sites and content?
[This post has been removed because someone somewhere in the world has been offended by it.]
Re: Re:
I’m offended that someone, somewhere in the world was offended by your allegedly offensive post.
Immediately restore said post or I will be further offended and take offensive action by lobbying (bribing) and getting a law passed (bought with corporate slush/hush fund money) to force you to put it back up under penalty (of whatever my money did buy).
Or would you believe, just scare you with a really nastygram type legal threat from a no-name lawyer with no force under the law, but sounding tough all the same?
India's Internet censorship
(I’m Indian, and was one of the earliest Internet users in India)
The title of this post is somewhat misleading (possibly out of ignorance of the situation so far) – India’s not ‘descending’ into extreme Internet censhorship. It’s just that they’re codifying this shit into law now, which brings it to the attention of Techdirt and the like.
Right from the beginning, the Indian govt. would get ISPs to ‘ban’ certain pages and websites, and the craven ISPs would freely comply, no pressure needed. And back then, because the Internet penetration was even lower than it is now, there would be nobody in the forest to hear the tree fall.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India – and that’s only after the media started covering stuff like this, circa 1999.
For instance, in ’96/’97 I was completely unable to access any Pakistani newspapers’ websites – they were completely blacked out. The Indian government is not above blocking absolutely anything they see fit – fortunately the Indian media are such noisy hellhounds that the govt can’t really suppress dissenting opinions. This does not exonerate the media though – they’re perfectly happy to indulge in ‘patriotic’ chest-thumping when propaganda and hate-speech sites are blocked.
The whole situation disgusts me – but there’s very little that can be done. Internet penetration in India is ridiculously low, and a vast majority of the voting public are abysmally poor and uneducated, which means they’re not schooled in critical thinking. And so they happily gobble up the propaganda BS if it is mentioned as being done ‘for the good of society’ or to ‘defend Indian cultural values’.
Re: India's Internet censorship
Question for you then, how is the education going? How are the poor getting less poor and having time to educate? Is it going better than say, 20-30 years ago? Do you think it will go better as time goes by? Or do the government tries to make sure most of the voting people stay uneducated?
Re: Re: India's Internet censorship
Government doesn’t really try in any country to make sure that the voting people stay uneducated, outside of the Middle East (which doesn’t include India).
They do try to make people get only ONE or TWO points of view (analogous is Americans only getting the liberal and conservative point of view on most subjects).
Re: Re: India's Internet censorship
Honestly, I think we’re headed in the right direction – it’s just a little slow by contemporary standards. The current crop of politicians who wield any power are old, crusty relics who struggle to understand how the modern world works (if they’re even trying, i.e.)
Having said that, it’s more the ‘middle class’ and higher sections of society that’s seeing any improvement in their lot. The poor are still struggling with survival. But my hope and belief is that people have realised the value in education, and each generation improves on the previous one by a little bit in that regard. Baby steps.
But like I said, it’s slow by contemporary standards, and the ridiculously endemic corruption will keep it at this glacial pace for another 10 years at least.
Re: India's Internet censorship
Question for you then, how is the education going? How are the poor getting less poor and having time to educate? Is it going better than say, 20-30 years ago? Do you think it will go better as time goes by? Or do the government tries to make sure most of the voting people stay uneducated?
Ban them all
I find religious sites, like Hindu, Christian, Jewish and Muslim sites, very objectionable.
Will these be banned now?
Would you expect sense out of a country in which cows are worshipped?
No US law against hate speech
copyright is not an international law, and most countries including USA have national laws against hate speech.
Wrong, the First Amendment as interpreted by the courts clearly protects what would be considered unlawful hate speech in most other nations.
See, Collin v. Smith holding that the nazis had aconstitutional right to demonstrate in Skokie Illinois.
And recently the Supreme Court implicitly reaffirmed the Skokie case by upholding the Westboro Baptist Church’s right to funeral protest.
Re: No US law against hate speech
We should be wary if the current Supreme Court begins to define obscenity though…
I believe the problem comes in that obscenity standards change from community to community. Should they sit down and say that “X is an obscenity”, I believe we’ll begin to see censorship creep up, making some of these forms of speech (such as WBC and even American Nazism) that much more dangerous.
Re: No US law against hate speech
what you said does not make any sense !!
I said the US constitution is not an international law, it is not.
You stated that yourself, that is assuming Illinois is in the US.
But if the nazis wanted to protest here in Australia, do you think they would come under the protection of the US Constitution ?
The US is one of many countries that have free speech laws, freedom of press, and laws against ‘hate’ speech.
Just like the US is one of many countries that have copyright laws, that have laws against other crimes like murder, rape and so on.
SIMILAR LAWS, not the SAME LAW..
Please, consider “international” means (NOT JUST THE US).
Show is a case where someone used their constitutional right to protect in Bulgaria ?
DEMOCRATIC TRADITION
Is it democratic tradition?
DEMOCRATIC TRADITION
Is it democratic tradition?
SRY bout reasonableness
The US has that too. Now what is all this reasonableness and making sense from you? Is this going to be habitual now?
Sorry, (for making ‘some’ sense).
I think the difference with the rising pitch in Aus is that it apples equally to complete statement or sentence, making a statement a question.
(we also pronounce ‘sugar’ differently).
Re: SRY bout reasonableness
I think the difference with the rising pitch in Aus is that it apples equally to complete statement or sentence, making a statement a question.
I know – does it make it confusing ever? I was playing on xbox with an Australian once (well at least once) and definitely noticed that. It can be a nice accent to listen to. Especially from someone like Jackie McKenzie. 🙂
India Censorship
Hmm..Yeah I think India’s divine babus are censoring soulcast.com, baywords.com and other uncensored blogs. You CAN however, access a ton of websites containing “hate” speech, porn, booze, blasphemy (and I mean things that would be blasphemous to ALL religions) and lots of other fun stuff that the garden variety Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Muslim, Christian and Jew would find offensive.
In India, it’s perfectly ok to offend religious sensibilities, just not BABU CONTROL FREAK sensibilities. The good babus don’t like dissent. They’re supposed to commit whatever crimes they feel like, steal public funds, steal private property, abuse the locals and violate the trust of the taxpayers and NOBODY is supposed to say SQUAT.