Centre for Internet and Society

India Blocks Facebook, Twitter, Mass Texts in Response to Unrest

praskrishna — 2012-09-03T02:46:42Z

The Indian government has gone on the offensive against Internet giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, demanding hundreds of pages be removed or blocked after political unrest erupted in various parts of the country.

This post by Simon Roughneen was posted in Media Shift on August 28, 2012. Nishant Shah is quoted.

On August 15, India's independence day, Indian northeasterners began fleeing Bangalore, the country's southern IT hub and 5th largest city, after text messages said to threaten Assamese people and other northeasterners were sent around.

Authorities restricted text messages so they could be sent to only five recipients to stop bulk sending, which was followed by a government backlash against social media and news sites; more than 300 pages have been blocked in recent days.

Exodus

The scene during the exodus was reminiscent of an old newsreel from World War II Europe, or, more aptly, from the separation of India and Pakistan in the late 1940s when around 25 million people took flight amid chaos and bloodshed as the contours of the new states were drawn up after British withdrawal.

On the platform at a Bangalore train station were hundreds of people from Assam state and other areas of India's northeast, a remote part of the country almost 2,000 miles away. The region is mostly surrounded by Bangladesh, Bhutan, China and Burma and is linked to the rest of India only by a narrow strip of land nicknamed the chicken-neck.

In July, fighting in the northeast's Assam state between local ethnic groups and Muslims -- which some Indians say are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh -- killed 80 people and forced 400,000 more from their homes, most of them Muslims. On August 11, a march in Mumbai , India's financial capital, ended up in a riot, with two killed and dozens injured, when Muslims there protested attacks on Muslims in the northeast and on Muslim Rohingya in Burma.

The SMS scare in Bangalore came next, but who sent what and why has never been clearly established, though three men were subsequently arrested in Bangalore on suspicion of mass-forwarding threatening text messages.

Nonetheless, the scare, real or hyped, was enough to prompt panic among the 300,000 or so northeasterners who study and work in Bangalore. Interviewees at the city's rail station, waiting for a train to Guwahati in Assam state, a two-and-a-half-day journey, said they hadn't received or even seen any messages, but the rumor mill went into overdrive and their parents in the northeast urged them to come home, temporarily at least.

A lack of confidence in police, perceived racism against northeasterners -- some of whom appear east or southeast Asian and are sometimes called "chinki" by other Indians -- as well as political discord ahead of elections next year all contributed to the exodus.

Government Reacts

The Indian government urged the northeasterners to stay put, as the exodus spread to Pune, Chennai and other large cities in the south and west where northeasterners work. Text messages were limited to five recipients to stop bulk messages spreading fear, a bar later raised to 20 recipients. India has around 750 million cell phone subscribers, the world's second biggest market after China, and the government's nationwide restriction seemed an over-reaction given that the exodus was confined to a few cities.

In a country of 1.2 billion people -- the world's fourth biggest economy measured in purchasing power parity terms -- the government is worried about a recent economic slowdown. Growth is at its lowest since 2003, and foreign investors are complaining out loud about hazy rules and red tape. India feels it needs to nip any political unrest in the bud with foreign investment dropping by 78 percent year-on-year, according to June figures.

Apparently with public order in mind, the Indian government began blocking websites and pages said to contain inflammatory content, even as the exodus slowed.

Nishant Shah of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society said that the government is trying to figure out how best to react to the transition from an era when news and information was carried via broadcast and print.

"In the older forms of governance, which were imagined through a broadcast model, the government was at the center of the information wheel, managing and mediating what information reached different parts of the country. In the [peer-to-peer] world, where the government no longer has that control, it is now trying different ways by which it can reinforce its authority and centrality to the information ecosystem. Which means that there is going to be a series of failures and models that don't work," Shah told PBS MediaShift in an email.

Overdoing It?

However, for a country that has long styled itself as the world's biggest democracy, and is home to some of the world's biggest selling English language newspapers, the last few days have seen the government take a forceful line against Internet giants such as Google and Facebook that some feel threatens freedom of speech.

The text messages were said to be from some of India's 170 million or so Muslim population, the world's third largest after Indonesia and Pakistan -- and the Indian government at first sought to blame Pakistan for fomenting the exodus by whipping up anger among India's Muslims.

Following the text restrictions, Indian authorities blocked what they describe as "incendiary" and "hate-mongering" content on websites in Pakistan and Bangladesh that they say spurred the northeast fighting -- including images of the 2010 Tibet earthquake passed off as images of Burmese Buddhists after attacking Burmese Muslims -- and asked Google and Facebook to remove the content.

However, news reports on the exodus, as well as other coverage of Muslim-Buddhist clashes in Burma, were blocked. Among those affected were Doha-based news agency Al-Jazeera and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). And stories on sectarian fighting in Arakan in western Burma -- where Buddhist Arakanese have clashed with Muslim Rohingya, with the flare-up catching the attention of Islamist groups elsewhere, including India -- were blocked in India.

ABC said on Friday content that "in relation to the particular blocked ABC, we are surprised by the action and we stand by the reporting."

An April 2011 law says that the government must give 48 hours before blocking pages, as well as an explanation for the block in each individual case, though this can be sidestepped in an emergency. "Every company, whether it's an entertainment company, or a construction company, or a social media company, has to operate within the laws of the given country," said Sachin Pilot, minister of state in the Ministry of Communications, speaking about the recent restrictions.

There's more to the back-story than just the 2011 IT law, however. Prior to the recent exodus from Bangalore and the government reaction, Google and Facebook were facing charges for allegedly hosting offensive material.

A Google spokesman, speaking by telephone from Singapore about the Indian government's recent blocks, said that the company abides by the law of the land, in India and elsewhere. "We also comply with valid legal requests from authorities wherever possible, consistent with our longstanding policy," he said.

All told, 80 million to 100 million Indians are online, and India has the world's third biggest number of Facebook users, at 53 million. But, that just makes up just 4.5 percent of the country's population.

Some commentators see the government as oversensitive. For example, using the pushback to put a block on an account parodying the country's prime minister.

Twitter has 16 million accounts in the country. By Friday, a stand-off between New Delhi and Twitter saw around 20 Twitter handles blocked by Indian ISPs, on the orders of the government, with threats that the government could block Twitter completely.

The hashtag #GOIblocks gets about 10-12 tweets per minute -- going by a quick scroll-through -- from users protesting the government's measures. However, caught up in the dragnet so far are accounts with little apparently to do with the Bangalore exodus. The Indian opposition said the blacklist is partisan, while other commentators see the government as oversensitive, using the pushback to put a block on an account (@PM0India) parodying the country's prime minister, for example.

Adding to the irony, though it is not clear whether this was by accident or design -- the Twitter account of Milind Deora, the country's minister of state for communications and IT, and a vocal proponent of the recent blocks, was taken down by Twitter for 12 hours before being restored -- along with an apology by Twitter on Saturday.

This story has been altered to correct the date of India's independence day.

Simon Roughneen is an Irish journalist usually based in southeast Asia. He writes for the The Irrawaddy, Christian Science Monitor and others. He is on twitter @simonroughneen and you can Circle him on Google+.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-pbs-org-aug-28-2012-simon-roughneen-india-blocks-facebook-twitter-mass-texts-in-response-to-unrest

India blocks access to 857 porn sites

pranesh — 2015-08-05T01:31:32Z

India has blocked free access to 857 porn sites in what it says is a move to prevent children from accessing them.

The story was published by BBC on August 3, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.

Adults will still be able to access the sites using virtual private networks (VPNs) or proxy servers. In July, the Supreme Court expressed its unhappiness over the government's inability to block sites, especially those featuring child pornography.

Telecom companies have said they will not be able to enforce the "ban" immediately.

"We have to block each site one by one and it will take a few days for all service providers to block all the sites," an unnamed telecom company executive told The Times of India newspaper.

A senior official, who preferred to remained unnamed, told the BBC Hindi that India's department of telecommunications had "advised" telecom operators and Internet service providers to "control free and open access" to 857 porn sites.

"There is no total ban. This was done in the backdrop of Supreme Court's observation on children having free access to porn sites. The idea is also to protect India's cultural fabric. This will not prevent adults from visiting porn sites," the official said.

In July, the top court had observed that it was not for the court to order a ban on porn sites.

"It is an issue for the government to deal with. Can we pass an interim order directing blocking of all adult websites? And let us keep in mind the possible contention of a person who could ask what crime have I committed by browsing adult websites in private within the four walls of my house. Could he not argue about his right to freedom to do something within the four walls of his house without violating any law?," the court said.

According to statistics released by adult site Pornhub, India was its fourth largest source of traffic in 2014, behind the US, UK and Canada. Pranesh Prakash of the Bangalore based Centre for Internet and Society said the directive to block the 857 sites was "the largest single order of its kind" in India.

"The government's reasoning that it is not a ban because adults can still access the porn sites is ridiculous," he told the BBC. The move has caused a great deal of comment on Indian social media networks, with many prominent personalities coming forward to condemn it.

Popular author Chetan Bhagat, writer and commentator Nilanjana Roy, politician Milind Deora and director Ram Gopal Varma have all added their voices to the debate.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bbc-news-august-3-2015-india-blocks-access-to-857-porn-sites

India believes in Complete Freedom of Cyber Space: Kapil Sibal

praskrishna — 2013-10-25T07:13:44Z

The site of the impact of a cyber crime should determine jurisdiction, says information technology minister Kapil Sibal.

This article by Elizabeth Roche was published in Livemint on October 14, 2013. Moulishree Srivastava also contributed to this story. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Minister for communications and information technology Kapil Sibal said on Monday that if a cyber crime had an impact on India or the subject matter was Indian, India should have the jurisdiction to investigate the crime and mete out justice.

India “believes in complete freedom of cyber space”, Sibal said, adding that the international community should arrive at a consensus on rules of jurisdiction and enforceability where cyber crimes are concerned. He was speaking at a conference on cyber security and cyber governance in New Delhi.

“Freedom of expression is central to our ideological stand on cyber space but at the same time there must be a de facto recognition of threats that are out there in cyber space and that we need to deal with those threats locally, nationally and globally and what we need is a consensus on those,” the minister said.

He was asked specifically about the need for changes in the global Internet governance structure following a US admission that its National Security Agency listened in on communications from the embassies of allies such as France, Italy and Greece, as well as Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey.

The site of the impact of a cyber crime should determine jurisdiction, the minister said.

He gave an example: if anything happens in an Indian mission located in New York, it should be governed by Indian law because the mission would be considered Indian territory.

“So as long as the source of the data is Indian and the impact is on India then the jurisdiction must be Indian and that should apply across the world,” he said.

“If the harm has been caused to Indian citizens or Indian property then jurisdiction should be Indian,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director at Centre for Internet and Society. “This principle has already been developed by Justice Murlidhar in Banyan Tree case. So this principle already has legal precedent.”

But Abraham added that “even if Indian courts believe that it is their jurisdiction, foreign law enforcement agencies may not co-operate. This may be one of the biggest challenges in implementing this principle”.

“This move could be seen as one enhancing cyber security, but since there is no universally accepted definition to cyber security and some government include speech regulation, surveillance, cyber crime and hacktivism a part of cyber security—there can be damaging consequences for human rights online,” Abraham said.

The minister’s statement assumes significance against the backdrop of a number of countries including India protesting the spying by the US National Security Agency (NSA) on their missions in Washington and New York.

According to many news reports, India was among the top five countries whose missions in the US were targeted by the NSA as part of a clandestine effort to mine electronic data. Reports of the US snooping has caused unease world wide.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the issue with US President Barack Obama in June while Brazil’s President Dilma Rouseff reportedly cancelled a summit with the US President in protest last month.

According to the ministry of external affairs in New Delhi, India raised the issue with the US embassy in New Delhi besides taking up the issue with the US state department in Washington. Both sides agreed to discuss the subject during their cyber security dialogue.

“That’s the law in the country...if anything happens there (in Indian embassies) that is part of Indian jurisdiction and similarly if you apply the same example and establish jurisdiction then anything that relates to Indian data and the impact on Indian data, it’s the courts in India that should have jurisdiction,” Sibal added later.

“We are talking about a principle and the principle is wherever there is Indian data wherever anything is done to impact on Indian data, the source of which is Indian then the jurisdiction must be of Indian courts,” the minister said adding that he was putting this view out as something the cyber security seminar should discuss.

India’s national security adviser Shiv Shankar Menon added that what the minister had voiced was India’s view but it was not a settled matter and that it had to be discussed at global forums.

With around 40% of the 120 million smartphone users in India accessing the Internet through mobile phones, network protection was an imperative. “The consequences of manipulation or distortion...can be potentially disastrous.” Menon said recalling how morphed pictures of violence seemingly targeting a particular ethnic group, circulated on the Internet and via cell phones, had resulted in thousands of people fleeing home from their places of work last year.

On certification of hardware security, Menon said: “India has recently received authorizing nation status for IT products and testing labs in the country will now gain global recognition,” adding that this was an opportunity for Indian industry.

Sibal, in his address, said the Internet had become a means of empowerment of people and most of this was due to the enormous freedom provided by the Internet. But “there can be no concept of sovereignty in cyber space because there are no territorial issues involved”, he said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-october-14-2013-elizabeth-roche-moulishree-srivastava-india-believes-in-complete-freedom-of-cyber-space

India Bans Mass SMS to Counter Panic

praskrishna — 2012-08-27T07:29:59Z

Last year social networking was credited with helping to organize revolutions across the Middle East and with getting normally apathetic middle-class Indians onto the streets to protest corruption.

This article by Shreya Shah was published in the Wall Street Journal on August 17, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

But in recent days, India has seen a darker side of social networking, as doctored videos of Muslims being attacked and text messages warning of retaliation by Muslims went viral in the wake of riots in the northeastern state of Assam.

The messages have caused panic among thousands of Indians and spurred attacks and clashes in two cities. In an attempt to calm the situation, India banned the ability to send mass text messages on Friday afternoon, the home ministry press office confirmed. The ban will stay in effect for two weeks.

In remarks to Parliament on Friday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, “The unity and integrity of our country is being threatened by certain elements.”

The riots in Assam saw clashes between Bodo tribals and Muslim immigrants, beginning in late July, which led to dozens of deaths and displaced tens of thousands of people. On Friday, Abdul Khaleque, press secretary to the chief minister of Assam, told India Real Time that the death toll had risen to 78 as sporadic clashes continued. Of the 400,000 people that had fled their homes, approximately 115,000 had returned home.

As India has struggled this month to bring calm to Assam, flare-ups started taking place in the western city of Pune, while in Bangalore, thousands of northeastern workers began fleeing the city.

Mobile phone messages saying that northeasterners had been killed in Bangalore have been circulating since Sunday, said Dilip Kanti, a 24-year-old law student from Mizoram who has lived in the city in the southern state of Karnataka for six years.

“The messages warned that we should leave the city before the day of Eid,” he added. Monday, Aug. 20, is an official holiday for Eid, the festival that marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.

The Karnataka state government and the police have said that this is a hoax message and that they are investigating the source of these messages.

The messages appear to be intended to panic northeasterners, send large numbers of them back to their home state, and foster fear of Muslims. Those developments could set the stage for sectarian riots, always a concern in a country that has seen such clashes break out frequently.

The home minister has said an inquiry is underway. But so far officials have not shared information about the source of these messages.

Presently, Indian companies that send mass text messages need to register to do so. But there’s no bar on individual users sending mass messages. A limit of 100 messagesper user per day was imposed last year in an attempt to reduce spam and later increased to 200, but this was overturned by the courts in July.

Text messages are the “most potent weapon of rumor,” said Shiv Visvanathan, a professor at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy in Haryana. “They can multiply a few thousand times in a minute.”

India has been aware of the danger of high-tech rumor-mongering. When the verdict on the contested religious site of the Babri Masjid in Uttar Pradesh state was due in 2010, the Indian government temporarily banned the ability to send mass text messages.

But this time, with a new home minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, who has only been in the job for a little more than two weeks, India was slower to act. It wasn’t till Friday afternoon – after the messages had been circulating for nearly a week – that India banned mass text messaging.

But by Wednesday, students and workers from the northeast who were living in Bangalore, where these messages circulated, were rushing to the train station to head home. On Thursday alone, two special trains were scheduled to take 6,000 people back to Guwahati, the capital of Assam.

Some of them had already experienced personal run-ins with Muslims upset about the riots in Assam. A 21-year-old student from the state of Nagaland, who didn’t want his name used, said that he is “sick of receiving these messages with rumors.” Apart from the messages, he said that he had been threatened twice in Bangalore by Muslims in the last five days but did not want to return to Nagaland and miss classes. His mother, on the other hand, is fearful for his safety and is forcing him to come back. His roommates have already left. “I will stay till Ramadan and if the situation doesn’t get better I will have no option but to leave,” he said.

The messages have gained potency from the fact that there have been some attacks on northeasterners in parts of India; these attacks too seem to have been intentionally instigated online.

Videos were doctored to show Muslims being tortured purportedly by ethnic Assamese, Pune police inspector Prasad Hasabnis told India Real Time.

“These incited the youth,” he added.

	Four students from the northeastern state of Manipur were attacked in Pune by young Muslim men in three separate incidents in the last week as a result, he said. In Mumbai, meanwhile, two people were killed and 65 injured after a protest over the suffering of Muslims in Assam turned violent. A group called the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena (Bhagat Singh’s Revolution Army) has been spreading some of the rumors, said Laurence Liang, a researcher with the Alternate Law Forum, a Bangalore-based human rights group that also advocates free speech.

Four students from the northeastern state of Manipur were attacked in Pune by young Muslim men in three separate incidents in the last week as a result, he said. In Mumbai, meanwhile, two people were killed and 65 injured after a protest over the suffering of Muslims in Assam turned violent.

A group called the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena (Bhagat Singh’s Revolution Army) has been spreading some of the rumors, said Laurence Liang, a researcher with the Alternate Law Forum, a Bangalore-based human rights group that also advocates free speech.

Mr. Liang said the group put up a post on Facebook that remained up until Wednesday. It said that a fatwa has been issued by the Muslims against people from the northeast and provided telephone numbers that didn’t work, he added. The Alternate Law Forum complained about the post to Facebook and it has since been taken down, he said.

“Technology is a double-edged sword,” says Mr. Liang. A few people use it to “rip up a frenzy of emotion by spreading rumors,” he says. He added that it didn’t help that “people in the United States and the United Kingdom, sitting in the safety of their homes, reply provocatively on social media, unaware of the consequences they unleash.”

Of course, some people are trying to use Twitter and Facebook to counter the rumors.

American Enterprise Institute resident fellow Sadanand Dhume tweeted on Friday that a video purporting to show violence in Assam was actually footage from Indonesia.

“I lived in Indonesia so recognized the policeman’s uniform, batik sarong & writing on baseball cap. Must be many more fake videos out there,” he said. (Mr. Dhume is an opinion columnist for The Wall Street Journal in India.)

And in a message on Facebook, Walter Fernandes, head of the North-Eastern Social Research Centre, said northeastern and Muslim associations were meeting in Bangalore to figure out how to quell the rumors, and that people shouldn’t give in to panic. Muslim leaders have promised to speak about the situation and the need to protect people from the northeast in their sermons, Mr. Fernandes wrote.

The Indian government last year attempted to censor social networking site like Facebook, arguing inflammatory content on the site could lead to violence in India. Facebook, Google and several other Internet firms are presently on trial in India for failing to remove offensive material from their sites in response to complaints. This month’s developments could help the government make a stronger case for censoring these sites.

But Pranesh Prakash, of the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society, says that greater regulation will not solve the problem. What he says is needed are proactive statements by the government and rigorous fact-checking by the media, especially regional news channels.

The only way of “countering rumors is by fact,” he said.

– Preetika Rana contributed to this post.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/blogs-wsj-com-aug-17-2012-shreya-shah-india-bans-mass-sms-to-counter-public

India 'jihadi' web blocking causes anger

praskrishna — 2015-01-03T02:48:48Z

A government block on more than 30 high-profile websites has caused anger across India.

The story was published in BBC on January 2, 2015. It was also mirrored in the Puffington Post the same day. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

India's Department of Telecoms ordered the blocking of the sites in order to prevent the publicising of "jihadi activities".

After considerable pressure, four of the sites - Weebly, Vimeo, Daily Motion and Github - were unblocked.

Officials said the other sites would have their blocks lifted if they complied with the "law of the land".

The Indian Ministry for Communication and Information Technology said in a statement: "It was stated that Anti National group are using social media for mentoring Indian youths to join the Jihadi activities."

It went on to say that the primary concern was that users posting material on the sites did not require any authentication, and that identities could be hidden.

The four websites that have been unblocked were said to have worked with the Indian government to address concerns - although it is unclear what changes, if any, have been made.

Some users were reporting that they were still unable to reach the apparently unblocked sites.

Pranesh Prakash, from the India-based Centre for Internet and Society, said: "Any intelligent person can see these sites don't incite terrorism."

'Many complaints'

Ahead of the ban lifting, a Vimeo spokeswoman said: "It is Vimeo's longstanding policy not to allow videos that promote terrorism, and we remove such videos whenever we become aware of them.

"We have not received notice from the Indian government concerning such videos and have contacted them requesting the blocking order to identify, and evaluate the video in question."

Many internet users in the country are angry that other sites remain blocked, in particular Pastebin - a site used for "dumping" text online anonymously - and The Internet Archive, a US organisation that offers a database of old websites.

The Internet Archive said on Twitter that it had received "many complaints" from users who were unable to access the service.

India has a history of sporadically blocking websites, or issuing warnings about online content.

In August 2012, 245 sites were blocked by the government in an attempt, it said, to quell violence.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bbc-january-2-2015-india-jihadi-web-blocking-causes-anger

Inde: la tentative de contrôler l'internet est "illégale"

praskrishna — 2012-08-26T10:50:54Z

Des spécialistes de l'internet ont qualifié vendredi de "complètement illégale" la tentative du gouvernement indien de bloquer des messages et des vidéos soupçonnés d'avoir contribué à attiser de récentes tensions interethniques.

Published by AFP. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

"Les responsables qui ont été chargés de cela ne connaissent pas suffisamment bien la loi et la technologie moderne", a tancé Pranesh Prakash, un gestionnaire de programmes au sein du Centre de recherche sur l'internet (Centre for Internet and Society), dont le siège est à Bangalore (sud).

"C'est contre-productif. Je les accuse d'incompétence monumentale, le principal problème étant qu'ils sont très mal conseillés", a-t-il ajouté, interrogé par l'AFP.

Le gouvernement a demandé aux fournisseurs indiens de services internet de bloquer 309 pages, images et liens présentant un caractère "malfaisant", postés sur des sites tels que Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, la chaîne de télévision du Qatar, Al-Jazeera ou la chaîne australienne, ABC.

Des dizaines de milliers de personnes ont récemment fui les villes de Bangalore et de Bombay pour rentrer dans l'Etat de l'Assam (nord-est).

Cet exode a été déclenché par l'envoi de menaces sur les téléphones portables et l'internet affirmant que les Assamais seraient attaqués par des musulmans après la fin du ramadan, en représailles à de récentes violences interethniques qui ont opposé les deux communautés dans cet Etat reculé de l'Inde.

Dans un communiqué, la chaîne de télévision ABC s'est dit "surprise" des mesures gouvernementales après la demande de retrait d'un de ses reportages sur les violences entre musulmans et bouddhistes en Birmanie.

Vivek Sood, avocat auprès de la Cour suprême et auteur d'une loi sur l'internet, a pour sa part jugé que la démarche du gouvernement était illégale.

"C'est complètement illégal en vertu de de la loi indienne sur les hautes technologies. C'est un abus de pouvoir", a-t-il dit au quotidien The Economic Times.

Le gouvernement a toutefois assuré vendredi que son but n'était pas de restreindre les échanges sur internet.

"C'est un succès. Ces pages étaient une menace à la sécurité nationale de l'Inde et nous avons demandé leur suppression immédiate", a commenté auprès de l'AFP un porte-parole du ministère de l'Intérieur, Kuldeep Singh Dhatwalia.

"La propagation de rumeurs encourageant la violence ou provoquant des tensions ne sera pas tolérée. L'idée n'est pas de restreindre la communication", a-t-il assuré.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/http-www-google-com-hostednews-afp-inde-la-tentative-de-controler-i-internet-est-illegale

If you thought India is a country where freedom of speech and expression are fundamental rights, think twice!

praskrishna — 2015-04-04T15:52:42Z

Having contributed significantly in growing pollution and corruption indices, there's one place where India seems to hold the top spot is: imposing restrictions on social media contents. There have been over 5,800 restriction requests recorded in the second half of 2014, as per Facebook's Government Requests Report.

The article was published in Business Insider on March 17, 2015. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Economic Times has reported that data and content restrictions across the globe are on the rise and India seems to have topped the list. The content restrictions from India have been constantly on the rise—it rose to 5,832 from 4,960 in the first half.

Things are not any different across the globe. "The amount of content restricted for violating local law increased by 11% over the previous half, to 9,707 pieces of content restricted, up from 8,774," said Monika Bickert, Facebook's head of global policy management, and Chris Sonderby, deputy general counsel, in a statement on the social networking website.

Other countries from where Facebook has observed an increased number of content restrictions requests are Turkey and Russia. Surprisingly, FET reported that the number of content restriction requests from Pakistan came down to 54 in the second half of 2014 from 1,773 in the first half.

It is worth noting that India is the second largest market for Facebook, with 112 million users until last year, second only to the United States. While these figures are alarming, counsel for the Software Freedom Law Centre told ET , "...it would have been better if Facebook had also given us more information on the kind of data that was being asked for. Now we only have consolidated figures. So what kind of data was asked for, that would have been more useful."

Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, on the other hand, feels that the number of content restriction requests is not only high on an absolute number, but even on a per-user basis.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-insider-march-17-2015-if-you-thought-india-is-a-country-where-freedom-of-speech-and-expression-are-fundamental-rights-think-twice

IETF103

Admin — 2018-12-14T02:05:18Z

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) organized the IETF103 in Bangkok from November 3 to November 9, 2018. Gurshabad Grover attended the event.

In the IETF hackathon, Gurshabad collaborated with Alp Toker (from NetBlocks.org) to develop a client-side website for testing DNS over HTTPS (DoH) servers. The tool can be used for decentralised testing of DoH servers for censorship and measurement. The tool can be found here. The slide deck we used to present can be found here.

In the meeting of the Human Rights Protocol Considerations (hrpc) research group, Niels ten Oever and Gurshabad presented a report from the hackathon. The video of the session is available on YouTube.

In the same meeting, it was decided that Gurshabad will be becoming a co-editor (with Niels ten Oever) on 'Guidelines for Human Rights Protocol Considerations' (draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines), which is an active Internet Draft detailing a methodology for conducting human rights reviews of protocols and networking standards.

In the meeting of Registration Protocols Extensions (regext) working group, a human rights review I submitted of the 'Verification Code Extension for the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)'(draft-ietf-regext-verificationcode) was discussed at length. The video of the session is available on YouTube.

Gurshabad participated in the meetings of several other working groups, including Software Updates for IoT Devices (SUIT), Transport Layer Security (tls), and Privacy Enhancements and Assessments Research Group (pearg).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ietf-103

Iceland’s proposed porn ban ‘like repression in Iran, N. Korea’ – activists

praskrishna — 2013-03-21T03:56:30Z

A group of 40 human rights activists from around the world fear that Iceland could become “a role model for Internet censorship” if it introduces Internet filters blocking online content deemed pornographic.

This blog post was published in RT on March 1, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

“The act of censoring pornography in Iceland differs in no way from repression of speech in Iran, China or North Korea,” human rights advocates wrote in an open letter to Icelandic Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson.

Activists from nearly 20 countries, including the UK, America, Austria and Finland, said that Iceland’s moral reasons for the push to censor Internet pornography is “justifying rather than condemning the actions of totalitarian regimes.”

Critics – including Jillian C. York, Director for International Freedom of Expression, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Sunil Abraham, Executive Director for India’s Internet and Society Center, and Ot van Daalen, head of the Dutch Bits of Freedom Center – have described the controversial measure as “an affront to basic principles of the society.”

They also argued that those advocating the Web porn ban have offered “no definition, no evidence, and suggested no technology.”

The authors of the letter warned that the prohibition of pornographic content could create demand for an underground porn industry, unregulated and most certainly affiliated with other illegal activities, “as we have seen in the case of drugs or alcohol prohibition. Hiding the problem is not a solution and may in fact make things worse.”

The solution, according to the activists, could be better sex education at home and schools: “Sex education that deals not only with conception, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases, but also relationships, communication and respect.”

Iceland, known for its feminist policies, could become the first Western country to censor online pornography, despite concerns over who will be given the authority to choose what is banned.

“It is tempting to regard filtering the Internet as a quick and easy way to restrict unwanted speech, opinions, or media, which the government regards as harmful for either them or the people,” the letter said. “The right to see the world as it is, is critical to the very tenets and functions of a democracy and must be protected at all costs.”

The activists claimed that it is technically impossible to censor the Internet without monitoring all telecommunications with automated machines: “This level of government surveillance directly conflicts with the idea of a free society.”

Iceland is not the only European country that has tried to implement such a ban. In December, the UK proposed blocking access to all pornographic websites, but UK ministers rejected the idea over a lack of public support.

According to supporters of the Icelandic ban, pornography has unquestionably damaging effects on both children and women.

"We have to be able to discuss a ban on violent pornography, which we all agree has a very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime," Interior Minister Jonasson, the author of the proposed ban, was quoted as saying.

While Iceland has already passed a law banning the distribution and printing of pornography, the proposed ban would eventually restrict access to pornographic websites in the country, and make it impossible to use Icelandic credit cards on X-rated sites.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/rt-march-1-2013-icelands-proposed-porn-ban

I dare you, I double dare you: Social media celebrates Sec 66A verdict

praskrishna — 2015-03-26T16:33:55Z

Users across social media platforms on Tuesday welcomed the Supreme Court's scrapping of the controversial Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, hailing it as a measure that will strengthen freedom of expression online.

The article by Vishakha Saxena published in the Hindustan Times on March 25, 2015 quotes Pranesh Prakash.

"This is the first SC judgment since the 60s to plainly strike down a law for free expression violation! #66A," tweeted Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bengaluru.

Prakash, who tweeted "I AM ECSTATIC!!" minutes after the judgement, was one of the most vocal critics of Section 66A - which made offensive comments online punishable with jail terms - and played a key role in creating awareness about freedom of expression.

Apar Gupta, a representative of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (one of the parties that petitioned the Supreme Court against section 66A), also took to Twitter to jubilantly declare victory.

"My TL is a little crazy right now…This decision means a lot to me. Thank you. I am smiling." he posted.

Supreme Court advocate Karuna Nundy, who too represents PUCL, expressed her happiness on Facebook.

The top court struck down the provision, described as draconian by many internet rights activists, describing it as "unconstitutional" and a "restriction on free speech".

Section 66A, incorporated through an amendment of the IT Act in 2009, prohibited the sending of information of a "grossly offensive" or "menacing" nature through communication devices. It was used by several states to arrest people over posts on social media that officials claimed were "seditious" or "communally sensitive".

Discussions on social media against the provision had gained pace hours ahead of the court's ruling. Twitter, in fact, was abuzz as thousands used the hashtag #No66A to voice their opinions.

Reddit, known for being unabashed with opinion and language, wasn’t far behind. The first post announcing the verdict was upvoted 96% and garnered 460 points within four hours.

"Supreme Court zindabad! Now can we abuse Azam Khan without any fear?" commented user Apunebolatumerilaila.

Another user, Indian_galileo, wrote, "FINALLY, SOME SENSE HAS PREVAILED PRAISE THE OVERLORDS AT SC THANK YOU SC THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-march-25-2015-vishakha-saxena-i-dare-you-i-double-dare-you

How ISPs block websites and why it doesn’t help

praskrishna — 2012-08-25T06:56:41Z

Banning websites is ineffective against malicious users as workarounds are easy and well known.

Gopal Sathe's article was published by LiveMint on August 24, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

India blocked 245 web pages for provocative content on Monday in an effort to prevent the spread of hate messages and lessen communal tensions in the country, and suggested via an official release on the website of the Press Information Bureau that more could follow.

As was widely reported in the days that followed, most websites blocked were not related to the ethnic clashes in Assam.

Pranesh Prakash, programme manager with the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, analysed the sites which were listed by the government. In his analysis, 33% of all blocked addresses were on Facebook, 27.8% on YouTube, 9.7% on Twitter and the rest were spread over a number of different websites including Wikipedia, Firspost.com and TimesofIndia.Indiatimes.com.

Prakash says, “I don’t believe that the decision to block sites was politically motivated, but I do believe that in trying to prevent harm, the government has gone overboard.”

He also writes in his analysis, “Even though many of the items on that list do deserve (in my opinion) to be removed [...] the people and companies hosting the material should have been asked to remove it, instead of ordering the ISPs to block them.”

Prakash also pointed out, “There are numerous egregious mistakes. Even people and posts debunking rumours have been blocked, and it is clear that the list was not compiled with sufficient care.”

Of course, India’s overall record on Internet censorship isn’t great, with the current laws encouraging Internet service providers (ISPs) to take down content without investigating individual cases properly. And that is not even taking into consideration official government orders, such as this decision to block websites.

The process of blocking content for an ISP is very simple. After all, any content that is coming from a website to your computer has to travel through the ISP, giving it ample opportunity to observe and censor banned content.

Think of it like this—you’re on an island, with no way to reach the mainland (Internet) where all the websites are. The ISP builds a bridge connecting you to the mainland, and charges you to let cars (data) from the sites come to you, by opening the road. Each web page has a unique ID, like a licence plate. If the government tells the ISP to block a specific page, it’s added to the blacklist, and isn’t allowed on the bridge. The government could also block a full domain, such as Facebook.com, which would be like blocking all cars with DL plates, instead of specific numbers.

New Delhi based cyber security consultant Dominic K. says, “The content is still there and can be accessed from outside India, so these measures are really very ineffective. People can use proxies or a virtual private network (VPN) to circumvent these measures with ease, by appearing to be a different site; so banning sites does nothing to deter malicious users.”

Proxies are websites that load blocked sites for you—if the proxy is not using the ISP doing the block, they can still load the content from the blocked site and present it to the users, since the blocklists simply block websites, and not their content.

VPNs work in a similar fashion, creating a virtual presence for the user outside of their own country. This can be done to circumvent blocks and access region-specific content, but is also a perfectly legitimate tool, and can increase your security greatly.

It’s a pretty crude system but it’s used around the world. In Australia, for example, the government has a page that directly lists their web censorship activities. It wants to block material that includes child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act. However, as noted on the same page, these measures can be easily circumvented. Since the content remains on the Internet, and is only blocked, it can be accessed by “any technically competent user”.

China, meanwhile, is frequently criticized for what is called, tongue-in-cheek, “the great firewall of China”. Reporters without Borders, a French organization that works for freedom of the press, has a list of countries that are “enemies of the Internet”. China, Iran, North Korea and Burma are some of the worst offenders, but Australia, India, Egypt, France and South Korea are also on the watchlist as “countries under surveillance”.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE publish detailed information on their filtering practices but other countries such as China return connection errors, and fake “file not found” errors.

There is a long history of Internet censorhip in India, and a perception that the laws have been used for political ends. Net censorship has been around for a while—in 1999, VSNL blocked access to Pakistani newspapers. Later, in 2006 the government wanted to block certain separatist groups of the Yahoo! Groups platform. While the government issued specific pages for the ban, initially, the whole Yahoo! Groups domain was blocked by ISPs. In 2007, Orkut was told to remove “defamatory” pages created by users.

Cartoon pornography website Savitabhabi.com was also blocked in 2009, while several blogging services such as Typepad were blocked last year for a few weeks, and then the block was lifted, with no explanations.

Like Australia, in the UK too, child pornography is filtered by the government, though users there have to opt-in for this filtering. Other countries such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden also see such content being filtered. The Indian IT Act also notes various kinds of illegal content which is not permissible, such as child pornography and hate speech.

Other countries, such as the US, also have aggressive Internet censorship of copyrighted content. Prakash says, “Internet censorship is not restricted to India alone. Every country in the world has been doing this in different ways. The United States, for example, has even seized domains in copyright cases, which were legally hosted in other countries. With regards to political censorship, which some feel is a concern now, I don’t think that the Indian government is doing that. I believe that they are sincerely trying to address a serious issue, but people are going overboard.”

He adds, “The biggest concern is that there is no transparency about what is being blocked, or why, and this leaves things open for active misuse in the future.”

In Google’s 2011 Transparency Report, released in June this year, India did not feature very favourably. According to Google, the number of content removal requests the company received increased by 49% from 2010. There were five court orders from India ordering the Internet giant to remove content and there were 96 other requests by Indian government agencies for 246 individual items.

In comparison, the US made only 77 requests in the same period. They also revealed that 70% of the content removal requests from India were related to defamation. National security and religious offence attracted far fewer removal requests. Google received only one request from Indian agencies from July to December 2011 for removal of pornographic content.

Our government might not be politically motivated in this instance—however, the possibility for abuse is high, and what’s more, the measures that are being taken are limited at best. Instead of ordering ISPs to block content directly, the government should be working with the content owners and platforms offering the content to have it taken down properly. Instead, we get crude measures which do nothing to deter malicious users, and only serve to inconvenience the general users.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-aug-24-2012-gopal-sathe-how-isps-block-websites-and-why-it-doesnt-help

How India Makes E-books Easier to Ban than Books (And How We Can Change That)

pranesh — 2012-02-21T11:50:56Z

Without getting into questions of what should and should not be unlawful speech, Pranesh Prakash chooses to take a look at how Indian law promotes arbitrary removal and blocking of websites, website content, and online services, and how it makes it much easier than getting offline printed speech removed.

E-Books Are Easier To Ban Than Books, And Safer

Contrary to what Mr. Sibal's recent hand-wringing at objectionable online material might suggest, under Indian laws currently in force it is far easier to remove material from the Web, by many degrees of magnitude, than it is to ever get them removed from a bookstore or an art gallery. To get something from a bookstore or an art gallery one needs to collect a mob, organize collective outrage and threats of violence, and finally convince either the government or a magistrate that the material is illegal, thereby allowing the police to seize the books or stop the painting from being displayed. The fact of removal of the material will be noted in various records, whether in government records, court records, police records or in newspapers of record. By contrast, to remove something from the Web, one needs to send an e-mail complaining about it to any of the string of 'intermediaries' that handle the content: the site itself, the web host for the site, the telecom companies that deliver the site to your computer/mobile, the web address (domain name) provider, the service used to share the link, etc. Under the 'Intermediary Guidelines Rules' that have been in operation since 11th April 2011, all such companies are required to 'disable access' to the complained-about content within thirty-six hours of the complaint. It is really that simple.

"That's ridiculous," you think, "surely he must be exaggerating." Think again. A researcher working with us at the Centre for Internet and Society tried it out, several times, with many different intermediaries and always with frivolous and flawed complaints, and was successful six out of seven times . Thus it is easier to prevent Flipkart or Amazon from selling Rushdie's Midnight's Children than it is to prevent a physical bookstore from doing so: today Indira Gandhi wouldn't need to win a lawsuit in London against the publishers to remove a single line as she did then; she would merely have to send a complaint to online booksellers and get the book removed. It is easier to block Vinay Rai's Akbari.in (just as CartoonsAgainstCorruption.com was recently blocked) than it is to prevent its print publication. Best of all for complainants: there is no penalty for frivolous complaints such as those sent by us, nor are any records kept of who's removed what. Such great powers of censorship without any penalties for their abuse are a sure-fire way of ensuring a race towards greater intolerance, with the Internet — that republic of opinions and expressions — being a casualty.

E-Book Bans Cannot Be Challenged

In response to some of the objections raised, the Cyberlaw Division of the Department of Information Technology, ever the dutiful guardian of free speech, noted that if you have a problem with access to your content being 'disabled', you could always approach a court and get that ban reversed. Unfortunately, the Cyberlaw Division of the Department of Information Technology forgot to take into account that you can't contest a ban/block/removal if you don't know about it. While they require all intermediaries to disable access to the content within thirty-six hours, they forgot to mandate the intermediary to tell you that the content is being removed. Whoops. They forgot to require the intermediary to give public notice that content has been removed following a complaint from person ABC or corporation XYZ on such-and-such grounds. Whoops, again.

So while records are kept, along with reasons, of book bans, there are no such records required to be kept of e-book bans.

E-Book Censors Are Faceless

Vinay Rai is a brave man. He is being attacked by fellow journalists who believe he's disgracing the professional upholders of free-speech, and being courted by television channels who believe that he should be encouraged to discuss matters that are sub judice. He is viewed by some as a man who's playing politics in courts on behalf of unnamed politicians and bureaucrats, while others view him as being bereft of common-sense for believing that companies should be legally liable for not having been clairvoyant and removing material he found objectionable, though he has never complained to them about it, and has only provided that material to the court in a sealed envelope. I choose, instead, to view him as a scrupulous and brave man. He has a face, and a name, and is willing to openly fight for what he believes in. However, there are possibly thousands of unscrupulous Vinay Rais out there, who know the law better than he does, and who make use not of the court system but of the Intermediary Guidelines Rules, firmly assured by those Rules that their censorship activities will never be known, will never be challenged by Facebook and Google lawyers, and will never be traced back to them.

Challenging Invisible Censorship

Dear reader, you may have noticed that this is a bit like a trial involving Free Speech in which Free Speech is presumed guilty upon complaint, is not even told what the charges against it are, has not been given a chance to prove its innocence, and has no right to meet its accusers nor to question them. Yet, the Cyberlaw Division of the Department of Information Technology continues to issue press releases defending these Rules as fair and just, instead of being simultaneously Orwellian and Kafkaesque. These Rules are delegated legislation passed by the Department of Information Technology under s.79 of the Information Technology Act. The Rules were laid before Parliament during the 2011 Monsoon session. We at CIS believe that these Rules are *ultra vires* the IT Act as well as the Constitution of India, not only with respect to what is now (newly) proscribed online (which in itself is enough to make it unconstitutional), but how that which is purportedly unlawful is to be removed. We have prepared an alternative that we believe is far more just and in accordance with our constitutional principles, taking on best practices from Canada, the EU, Chile, and Brazil, while still allowing for expeditious removal of unlawful material. We hope that the DIT will consider adopting some of the ideas embodied in our draft proposal.

As Parliament passed the IT Act in the midst of din, without any debate, it is easy to be skeptical and wonder whether Rules made under the IT Act will be debated. However, I remain hopeful that Parliament will not only exercise its power wisely, but will perform its solemn duty — borne out of each MP's oath to uphold our Constitution — by rejecting these Rules.

Photo credit: Lynn Gardner, under CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence*

This was reproduced in Outlook Magazine on 27 January 2012

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/india-ebooks-easier-to-ban-than-books

Historic day for freedom of speech and expression in India

vidushi — 2015-03-26T02:19:17Z

In a petition that finds its origin in a simple status message on Facebook, Shreya Singhal vs Union of India marks a historic reinforcement of the freedom of speech and expression in India.

The article by Vidushi Marda was published in Bangalore Mirror on March 25, 2015.

Hearing a batch of writ petitions, the bench comprising Justices Rohinton F Nariman and J Chelameswar considered the constitutionality of three provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The provisions under consideration were Section 66A, dealing with punishment of sending offensive messages through communication services, Section 69A which discusses website blocking and Section 79, dealing with intermediary liability.

The intent behind Section 66A was originally to regulate spam and cyber stalking, but in the last seven years not a single spammer has been imprisoned.

Instead, innocent academics have been arrested for circulating caricatures. The Court struck down the section in its entirety, declaring it unconstitutional.

It held that the language of the section was "nebulous" and "imprecise" and did not satisfy reasonable restrictions under A. 19(2) of the Constitution of India.

Section 79 was meant to result in the blossoming of free speech since it stated that intermediaries will not be held liable for content created by their users unless they refused to act on take-down notices. Unfortunately, intermediaries were unable to decide whether content was legal or illegal, and when the Centre for Internet and Society in 2011 sent flawed take-down notices to seven prominent national and international intermediaries, they erred on the side of caution and over-complied, often deleting legitimate content. By insisting on a court order, the Supreme Court has eliminated the chilling effect of this Section.

Block orders issued by the Indian government to telecom operators and ISPs were shrouded in opacity.

The process through which such orders were developed and implemented was not within public scrutiny. When a film is banned, it becomes part of public discourse, but website blocking does not enjoy the same level of transparency. The person whose speech has been censored is not notified or given an opportunity to be heard as part of the executive process. Unfortunately, in dealing with Section 69A, the Court chose to leave it intact, stating that it is a "narrowly drawn provision with several safeguards."

On balance, this is a truly a landmark judgment as it is the first time since the 1960s that the Supreme Court has struck down any law in its entirety for a violation of free speech.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/bangalore-mirror-vidushi-marda-march-25-2015-historic-day-for-freedom-of-speech-and-expression-in-india

Hiding behind rules on naming sites it banned, govt reveals fears

praskrishna — 2015-09-27T10:59:56Z

With the union government's ban on 857 porn sites in July creating brouhaha across the country, there had been a concern over the voice of the youth being stifled and censorship making a comeback.

The article by Harjeet Inder Singh Sahi was published in the Hindustan Times on September 3, 2015.

Even though there was a partial rollback of the ban, the government still seems intent on being obtrusive with information and deny access to it, especially about the internet and the way it intends to govern it.

This has been illustrated by the union government's department of telecommunications refusing to provide information on websites it has banned to a petition under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The reply

"The group coordinator, cyber law division, department of electronics and information technology, has been authorised as designated officer and issues instructions for blocking/unblocking of websites/URLs. The clause 16 of Information Technology Procedure and Safeguards for blocking access of information by Public, Rules 2009, says strict confidentiality shall be maintained regarding all requests and complaints received and actions taken thereof," says the reply to the RTI application filed by this correspondent on August 3.

The reply to the petition - filed at www.rtionline.gov.in with registration number DOTEL/R/2015/61348 - was received on August 27.

Background to the case

In July this year, the department of electronics and information technology had banned 857 pornographic websites listed in the petition of Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vaswani in the supreme court. The websites were banned by citing 'morality' and 'decency' enshrined in Article 19 (2) of the Constitution of India and under provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000. A few days later, the government did a flip-flop and revoked the ban partially.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) had subsequently released the list online. Now, the government has refused to provide information on websites banned in the country.

Department tangle

The department of electronics and IT decided on the ban, but it was the department of telecom which served the order to the internet companies because it is the supervising authority for them. The RTI can be filed with the department of telecom as it issues guidelines for and notices to internet service providers. The same application could also have been filed with the department of electronics and information technology. This department might have replied to the application or forwarded it to the telecom department.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-september-3-2015-harjeet-inder-singh-sahi-hiding-behind-rules-on-naming-sites-it-banned-govt-reveals-fears

Here is the entire list of 'escorts service' websites that the government has banned

praskrishna — 2016-07-02T04:51:30Z

Another day and another opaque order asking Indian service providers to block websites that allegedly offer or advertise escort services in India. In total, the government has ordered ban on 237 websites. But as it happens whenever the Indian government bans website, there has been no public communication about the same.

The article was published in India Today on June 16, 2016

Also, it has not been explained what, if any, process was followed before these websites were banned and what norms were applied for the order that the internet service providers have received.

However, now Centre for Internet and Society has caught hold of the list of the websites that have been banned. Here is what the organisation says, "Unfortunately, the government does not make available publicly the list of websites they have ordered ISPs to block. Given that knowledge of what is censored by the government is crucial in a democracy, we are publishing the entire list of blocked websites."

As for the websites and URLs here they are:

www.sterlingbioscience.com
rawpoint.biz
www.onemillionbabes.com
www.mumbaihotcollection.in
simranoberoi.in
rubinakapoor.biz
talita.biz
www.mumbaiescortsagency.net
www.mumbaifunclubs.com
www.alishajain.co.in
www.ankitatalwar.co.in
https://www.jennyarora.ind.in
www.riya-kapoor.com
shneha.in
missinimi.in
www.mumbaiglamour.in
kalyn.in
www.saumyagiri.co.in/city/mumbai/
bookerotic.com
www.divyamalik.in
www.suhanisharma.co.in
www.ruhi.biz
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www.aliyaghosh.com
priyasen.in
www.highprofilemumbaiescorts.co.in
charmingmumbai.com
www.poojamehata.in
kiiran.in/
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www.newmumbaiescorts.in
www.mumbaifunclubs.com
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www.sonikaa.com/services/
riyamodel.in
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www.siyasharma.org/
www.rubikamathur.in
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www.mumbai-escorts.co.in
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shivaniarora.co.in/escort-service-mumbai.html
www.pinkisingh.com
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www.sonalikajain.com
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exmumbai.in/
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www.escortspoint.in
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