News & Media
Criticism mounts over India censorship
India’s government is facing fierce criticism from privacy groups, political opponents and irate internet users accusing it of an excessive and poorly targeted censorship drive as it seeks to contain social alarm triggered by communal unrest.
Internet clamp outrage
The Indian government's attempts to block social media accounts and websites that it blames for spreading panic have been inept and possibly illegal, a top Internet expert said yesterday.
India Blocks News Website Pages for 'Spreading Fear' over Assam Violence
Access to more than 300 internet web pages including some published by Telegraph, Times of India and Al-Jazeera blocked.
Delhi defends Internet blocking
India on Friday defended itself against accusations of heavy-handed online censorship, saying it had been successful in blocking content blamed for fuelling ethnic tensions.
India: Social Media Censorship to Contain ‘Cyber-Terrorism'?
This is the second post in the 2-part series about the perceived role of social media in the wake of the Assam clashes that spilled across the country and threatened to upset the nation's peace.
Blocked websites: Where India flawed
Apart from not giving 48 hours response time, the Indian government has blocked some websites which don't exist or don't have web addresses, says an analyst.
India threatens action against Twitter for ethnic violence 'rumors'
India threatened to take action on Thursday against Twitter over content alleged to have inflamed ethnic tensions, as leaked documents revealed the government scrambling to censor online material.
Some ISPs block Wordpress domain across India
Latest reports confirm that Tata Photon has blocked access to the Wordpress.com domain across India, following a government order to block web pages containing offensive content.
Twitter handles: How and why govt erred and what it can do to be smarter & more effective
Here's a weekend reading recommendation for the mandarins who run the Government of India: it's a freely downloadable, a 145-page long document called "After the Riots". It is a report by the Riot Communities and Victims Panel, set up by the British prime minister to study reasons for the cause, spread and the damage wreaked by the riots that occurred in towns and cities in England in early August 2011.
Inde: la tentative de contrôler l'internet est "illégale"
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.
After Violence in India, a Crackdown Online
The recent panic that led tens of thousands of Indians to flee their homes has largely subsided, leaving in its wake an uneven government crackdown on the Internet and text-messaging services that top officials blame for circulating the baseless rumors that set off the exodus.
Regulating the Internet by fiat
The Union government’s move to ban or block 310 online entities is worrisome.
When #GOIBlocks, twitterati fly off their ‘handles’
Ever since the news broke mid-week that some genuine Twitter accounts and six spoof accounts were blocked, the social networking platform has been in a tizzy.
India’s Internet Curbs Under Legal Cloud
India’s crackdown on the Internet has caused much debate. But was it legal?
India Dismisses Charges of Internet Censorship
Read, listen and learn English with this story. Double-click on any word to find the definition in the Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary.
Tweets and twits
The orders issued by the Ministry of Communication and IT to block more than 300 items on the Internet, including Twitter handles, Facebook pages, YouTube videos, blogposts, pages of certain websites, and in some cases entire websites, tell a revealing story of a government that has simply not applied its mind to the issue of how to deal with hate speech, both cyber and traditional.
Blocking Twitter: How Internet Service Providers & telcos were caught between tweets and tall egos
Long derided as 'dumb pipes' to the Web, Internet service providers (ISPs) are discovering these days that insult is being increasingly followed up by injury.
How ISPs block websites and why it doesn’t help
Banning websites is ineffective against malicious users as workarounds are easy and well known.
Internet expert criticizes Indian cyber blockades
The Indian government's attempts to block social media accounts and websites that it blames for spreading panic have been inept and possibly illegal, a top Internet expert said Friday.
India's social media crackdown reveals clumsy govt machinery
"High-handed" and "reckless" are some of the words used in the media to describe the government's online crackdown.
Document Actions
