Pastebin, Dailymotion, Github blocked after DoT order: Report

The article by Anupam Saxena was published in the Times of India on December 31, 2014. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The block was first reported by Pastebin, a website where you can store text online for a set period of time, through its social media accounts on December 19. In a follow-up post on December 26, the site posted that it was still blocked in India on the directions of the Indian government.A number of users also posted about the blocks on Reddit threads confirming that the sites have been blocked by Vodafone, BSNL and Hathway, among others.It now appears that the blocks are being carried out on the instructions of DoT (Department of Telecom). The telecom body reportedly issued a notification regarding the same on December 17. A screenshot of the circular has been posted on Twitter by Pranesh Prakash.

The notification mentions that 32 URLs including Pastebin, video sharing sites Vimeo and DailyMotion, Internet archive site archive.org and Github.com( a web-based software code repository), have been blocked under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. DoT has also asked ISPs to submit compliance reports. However, we have not been able to verify the authenticity of the circular.

At the time of writing this story, we could not access Pastebin, DailyMotion and Github on Vodafone 3G and our office network that has access via dedicated lines. Vodafone is not displaying any errors and is simply blocking access. However, a number of users report that they're getting an error that says 'the site is blocked as per the instructions of Competent Authority.' However, we were able to access all the websites on Airtel 3G.