Legal Research

A Curtain Falls on the Indian Blogosphere

By turquhart

India's Department of Telecommunications has ordered Indian Internet service providers to block a few handpicked Web sites. The attempt to block specific sites has apparently run afoul of the agency's directive.

Millions of domestic internet users could not access some of the world?s most popular blogs like geocities.com, blogspot.com and typepad.com, as the government ordered a blackout of around 18 sites for publishing content that was ?anti-national? and ?against public interest?. (via The Indian Express)

Yes folks, the Indian government has decided to censor blogs and refused to explain why. (via Boing Boing)

Unless this counts:

Officials defended the decision saying, 'We would like those people to come forward who access these (the 12) radical websites and please explain to us what are they missing from their lives in the absence of these sites.' (via Hindustan Times)

Is this perhaps the result of well-intentioned policing gone awry? ( via DNA)

If the government is indeed blocking blogs from Blogspot and Typepad, it?s incredibly silly and misguided. My guess is that they intended to block a particular hate blog, and the entire domain got taken down because of inept implementation. I hope they correct it soon. It would be a great pity if India went the way of China or Pakistan as far as free speech is concerned. (India Uncut blogger, Amit Varma, via DNA)

Take a look here for blogger Kiran Jonnalagadda's take on how to bypass the foul-up.

Posted by Toni Urquhart

Full post as published by FSU College of Law Library Blog on July 18, 2006 (boomark / email).