Digital Natives Blog
Are we Losing the Right to Privacy and Freedom of Speech on Indian Internet?
The article was published in DNA on March 10, 2016.
Net Neutrality Advocates Rejoice As TRAI Bans Differential Pricing
India would not see any more Free Basics advertisements on billboards with images of farmers and common people explaining how much they benefited from this Facebook project.
World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) had published a book in 2014 that examines free speech, expression and media development. The chapter contains a Foreword by Irina Bokova, Director General, UNESCO. Pranesh Prakash contributed to Independence: Introduction - Global Media Chapter. The book was edited by Courtney C. Radsch.
Free Speech and Public Order
In this post, Gautam Bhatia has explained the law on public order as a reasonable restriction to freedom of expression under Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India.
Free Speech and the Law on Sedition
Siddharth Narrain explains how the law in India has addressed sedition.
Internet Freedom
The modern medium of the web is an open-sourced, democratic world in which equality is an ideal, which is why what is most important is Internet freedom.
Facebook's Fall from Grace: Arab Spring to Indian Winter
Facebook’s Free Basics has been permanently banned in India! The Indian telecom regulator, TRAI has issued the world’s most stringent net neutrality regulation! To be more accurate, there is more to come from TRAI in terms of net neutrality regulations especially for throttling and blocking but if the discriminatory tariff regulation is anything to go by we can expect quite a tough regulatory stance against other net neutrality violations as well.
The Internet Has a New Standard for Censorship
The introduction of the new 451 HTTP Error Status Code for blocked websites is a big step forward in cataloguing online censorship, especially in a country like India where access to information is routinely restricted.
Facebook Free Basics: Gatekeeping Powers Extend to Manipulating Public Discourse
15 million people have come online through Free Basics, Facebook's zero rated walled garden, in the past year. "If we accept that everyone deserves access to the internet, then we must surely support free basic internet services. Who could possibly be against this?" asks Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, in a recent op-ed defending Free Basics.
The Humpty-Dumpty Censorship of Television in India
The Modi government’s attack on Sathiyam TV is another manifestation of the Indian state’s paranoia of the medium of film and television, and consequently, the irrational controlling impulse of the law.
Summary Report Internet Governance Forum 2015
Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India participated in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held at Poeta Ronaldo Cunha Lima Conference Center, Joao Pessoa in Brazil from 10 November 2015 to 13 November 2015. The theme of IGF 2015 was ‘Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development’. Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash & Jyoti Panday from CIS actively engaged and made substantive contributions to several key issues affecting internet governance at the IGF 2015. The issue-wise detail of their engagement is set out below.
The Legal Validity of Internet Bans: Part II
In recent months, there has been a spree of bans on access to Internet services in Indian states, for different reasons. The State governments have relied on Section 144, Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 to institute such bans. Despite a legal challenge, the Gujarat High Court found no infirmity in this exercise of power in a recent order. We argue that it is Section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000, and the Website Blocking Rules, which set out the legal provision and procedure empowering the State to block access to the Internet (if at all it is necessary), and not Section 144, CrPC.
The Legal Validity of Internet Bans: Part I
In recent months, there has been a spree of bans on access to Internet services in Indian states, for different reasons. The State governments have relied on Section 144, Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 to institute such bans. Despite a legal challenge, the Gujarat High Court found no infirmity in this exercise of power in a recent order. We argue that it is Section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000, and the Website Blocking Rules, which set out the legal provision and procedure empowering the State to block access to the Internet (if at all it is necessary), and not Section 144, CrPC.
Governing Speech on the Internet: From the Free Marketplace Policy to a Controlled 'Public Sphere'
This post by Smarika Kumar is part of the 'Studying Internets in India' series. Smarika is a consultant with Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore. She is interested in issues concerning law and technology. In this essay, Smarika explores how through the use of policy and regulation, the private marketplace of the internet is sought to be reined in and reconciled to the public sphere, which is mostly represented through legislations governing the internet.
Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age
The Centre for Internet & Society, the Observer Research Foundation, the Internet Policy Observatory, the Centre for Global Communication Studies and the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania organized this conference on April 21, 2015 in New Delhi.
Free Speech Policy in India: Community, Custom, Censorship, and the Future of Internet Regulation
This note summarises my panel contribution to the conference on Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age at New Delhi on 21 April 2015, which was organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in collaboration with the Internet Policy Observatory of the Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
The generation of e-Emergency
The next generation of censorship technology is expected to be ‘real-time content manipulation’ through ISPs and Internet companies.
DesiSec: Cybersecurity and Civil Society in India
As part of its project on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia, the Centre for Internet & Society conducted a series of interviews with cyber security actors. The interviews were compiled and edited into one documentary. The film produced by Purba Sarkar, edited by Aaron Joseph, and directed by Oxblood Ruffin features Malavika Jayaram, Nitin Pai, Namita Malhotra, Saikat Datta, Nishant Shah, Lawrence Liang, Anja Kovacs, Sikyong Lobsang Sangay and, Ravi Sharada Prasad.
DeitY says 143 URLs have been Blocked in 2015; Procedure for Blocking Content Remains Opaque and in Urgent Need of Transparency Measures
Across India on 30 December 2014, following an order issued by the Department of Telecom (DOT), Internet Service Providers (ISPs) blocked 32 websites including Vimeo, Dailymotion, GitHub and Pastebin.
Shreya Singhal and 66A
Most software code has dependencies. Simple and reproducible methods exist for mapping and understanding the impact of these dependencies. Legal code also has dependencies --across court orders and within a single court order. And since court orders are not produced using a structured mark-up language, experts are required to understand the precedential value of a court order.
