'Website not found' pop-ups leave net activists fuming
Internet activists are concerned over what they term as rising instances of websites being blocked by internet service providers (ISPs) and the government without citing any reason for doing so.
The article was published in Economic Times on March 6, 2019. Gurshabad Grover was quoted.
Last year, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) blocked 2,799 URLs for allegedly hosting malicious content, marking a sharp increase from 2017, when 1,385 URLs were blocked.
These numbers were disclosed by minister of state for electronics and IT SS Ahluwalia in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha in February.
In 2016, the number of URLs that were blocked stood at 633.
The government has also withheld information on the list of blocked websites despite several queries under the right to information (RTI) Act, internet activists told ET.
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bengaluru-based advocacy group, is compiling a list of URLs and websites that are being blocked, and has identified over 3,200 so far. Senior policy officer at CIS Gurshabad Grover said that among the blocked URLs are proxy servers and websites of NGOs that are deemed to have criticised government policy.
As per Grover, some of the websites and URLs reported to have been blocked at some point include the sites of human rights groups such as arabhra-.org, www.protectioninternational.org and www.drugsense.org.Also blocked were a site on feminism (feminist.org), the website of an environmental organisation (wedo.org) and a blog by activist Irom Sharmila (iromsharmilachanu.wordpress.com).
“Many blockades, when brought to the notice of courts, were revoked, but the URLs still remain inaccessible. The bigger problem is that of getting the list of blocked URLs,” Grover told ET.
Restricting the Right to Receive Information
A MeitY official, however, said no website is blocked arbitrarily. “No government machinery can order (blocking of a URL) without valid reason and without following valid procedure. And the only procedure available to us is (Section) 69A and 79 (of the IT Act). Rest is a court order,” the senior MeitY official, who did not want to be identified, told ET.
“Valid procedure is (Section) 69A, where we can order. But in addition there is (Section) 79, where notice is issued for any illegal activity happening on any platform. This notice can be issued by the appropriate government department. And the intermediary platform is free to agree to it or disagree,” the official said, adding that every complaint received against a website is considered individually.
Section 69A of the IT Act empowers the Centre to block websites in the interest of national security. Section 79 empowers the government to issue a notice to an intermediary to remove any content that it finds illegal.
A MeitY spokesperson could not respond immediately to ET’s emailed queries on the issue.
Grover of CIS said there was no way to determine if a website was blocked by the government or an ISP, unless a government order for the blocking was available.
For instance, last month, several users of the messenger service Telegram and music sharing website SoundCloud had reported that these websites had been blocked by Reliance Jio, according to the Internet Freedom Foundation.
Reliance Jio did not respond to queries from ET.
Internet Freedom Foundation’s executive director Apar Gupta expressed concern over the lack of information regarding reasons for blocking URLs.
“This is very worrying because it’s a secretive process that prevents the public from accessing a website, which restricts the right to receive information — a part of the fundamental right to freedom of speech and information,” he said.
