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Analysing Latest List of Blocked Sites (Communalism & Rioting Edition)
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analysing-blocked-sites-riots-communalism
<b>Pranesh Prakash does preliminary analysis on a leaked list of the websites blocked from August 18, 2012 till August 21, 2012 by the Indian government.</b>
<hr />
<p><b>Note</b>: This post will be updated as more analysis is done. Last update: 23:59 on August 22, 2012. This is being shared under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence</a>.</p>
<hr />
<img src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AqefbzxbW_b_dE5rTG9XbkRab0cxWFdoOEgyN01YcWc&oid=1&zx=dskyfic7thzd" />
<hr />
<h2><b>How many items have been blocked?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are a total of 309 specific items (those being URLs, Twitter accounts, img tags, blog posts, blogs, and a handful of websites) that have been blocked. This number is meaningless at one level, given that it doesn't differentiate between the blocking of an entire website (with dozens or hundreds of web pages) from the blocking of a single webpage. However, given that very few websites have been blocked at the domain-level, that number is still reasonably useful.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Please also note, we currently only have information related to what telecom companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were asked to block till August 21, 2012. We do not have information on what individual web services have been asked to remove. That might take the total count much higher.</p>
<h2><b>Why have these been blocked?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As far as I could determine, all of the blocked items have content (mostly videos and images have been targeted, but also some writings) that are related to communal issues and rioting. (Please note: I am not calling the content itself "communal" or "incitement to rioting", just that the content relates to communal issues and rioting.) This has been done in the context of the recent riots in Assam, Mumbai, UP, and the mass movement of people from Bangalore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There were reports of parody Twitter accounts having been blocked. Preliminary analysis on the basis of available data show that parody Twitter accounts and satire sites have <i>not</i> been targetted solely for being satirical. For instance, very popular parody Twitter accounts, such as @DrYumYumSingh are not on any of the four orders circulated by the Department of Telecom. (I have no information on whether such parody accounts are being taken up directly with Twitter or not: just that they aren't being blocked at the ISP-level. Media reports indicate <a href="http://goo.gl/GI9jP">six accounts have been taken up with Twitter</a> for being similar to the Prime Minister's Office's account.)</p>
<h2><b>Are the blocks legitimate?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The goodness of the government's intentions seem, quite clearly in my estimation, to be unquestionable. Yet, even with the best intentions, there might be procedural illegalities and over-censorship.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are circumstances in which freedom of speech and expression may legitimately be limited. The circumstances that existed in Bangalore could justifiably result in legitimate limitations on freedom of speech. For instance, I believe that temporary curbs — such as temporarily limiting SMSes & MMSes to a maximum of five each fifteen minutes for a period of two days — would have been helpful.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However it is unclear whether the government has exercised its powers responsibly in this circumstance. The blocking of many of the items on that list are legally questionable and morally indefensible, even while a some of the items ought, in my estimation, to be removed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If the government has blocked these sites under s.69A of the Information Technology Act ("Power to Issue Directions for Blocking for Public Access of Any Information through any Computer Resource"), the persons and intermediaries hosting the content should have been notified provided 48 hours to respond (under Rule 8 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009). Even if the emergency provision (Rule 9) was used, the block issued on August 18, 2012, should have been introduced before the "Committee for Examination of Request" by August 20, 2012 (i.e., within 48 hours), and that committee should have notified the persons and intermediaries hosting the content.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Importantly, even though many of the items on that list are repugnant and do deserve (in my opinion) to be removed, ordering ISPs to block them is largely ineffectual. The people and companies hosting the material should have been asked to remove it, instead of ordering Internet service providers (ISPs) to block them. All larger sites have clear content removal policies, and encouraging communal tensions and hate speech generally wouldn't be tolerated. That this can be done without resort to the dreadful Intermediary Guidelines Rules (which were passed last year) shows that those Rules are unnecessary. It is our belief that <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/constitutional-analysis-of-intermediaries-guidelines-rules">those Rules are also unconstitutional</a>.</p>
<h2><b>Are there any egregious mistakes?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Yes, there are numerous such examples of egregious mistakes.</p>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Most importantly, some even <b>people and posts debunking rumours have been blocked</b>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Some of the Twitter accounts are of prominent people who write for the mainstream media, and who have written similar content offline. If their online content is being complained about, their offline content should be complained about too.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Quite a number of the links include articles published and reports broadcast in the mainstream media (including a Times Now report, a Telegraph picture gallery, etc.), and in print, making the blocks suspect. Only the online content seems to have been targeted for censorship.</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are numerous mistakes and inconsistencies that make blocking pointless and ineffectual.</p>
<ol>
<li>Some of the items are not even web addresses (e.g., a few HTML img tags were included).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Some of the items they have tried to block do not even exist (e.g., one of the Wikipedia URLs).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">An entire domain was blocked on Sunday, and a single post on that domain was blocked on Monday.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">For some Facebook pages, the secure version (https://facebook.com/...) is listed, for others the non-secure version (http://facebook.com/...) is listed.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">For some YouTube videos, the 'base' URL of YouTube videos is blocked, but for other the URL with various parameters (like the "&related=" parameter) is blocked. That means that even nominally 'blocked' videos will be freely accessible.</li>
</ol>
<p>All in all, it is clear that the list was not compiled with sufficient care.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Despite a clear warning by the DIT that "above URLs only" should be blocked, and not "the main websites like www.facebook.com, www.youtube.com, www.twitter.com, etc.", it has been seen that some ISPs (like Airtel) <a href="http://www.labnol.org/india/india-blocks-youtube/25028/">have gone overboard in their blocking</a>.</p>
<h2><b>Why haven't you put up the whole list?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Given the sensitivity of the issue, we felt it would be premature to share the whole list. However, we strongly believe that transparency should be an integral part of all censorship. Hence, this analysis is an attempt to provide some much-needed transparency. We intend to make the entire list public soon, though. (Given how porous such information is, it is likely that someone else will procure the list, and release it sooner than us.)</p>
<h2><b>Why can I still access many items that are supposed to be blocked?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One must keep in mind that fresh orders have been issued on a day-by-day basis, that there are numerous mistakes in the list making it difficult to apply (some of these mistakes have been mentioned above), and the fact that that this order has to be implemented by hundreds of ISPs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Your ISP probably has not have got around to enforcing the blocks yet. At the time of this writing, most ISPs don't seem to be blocking yet. This analysis is based on the orders sent around to ISPs, and not on the basis of actual testing of how many of these have actually been blocked by Airtel, BSNL, Tata, etc.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Additionally, if you are using Twitter through a client (on your desktop, mobile, etc.) instead of the web interface, you will not notice any of the Twitter-related blocks.</p>
<h2><b>So you are fine with censorship?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">No. I believe that in some cases, the government has the legal authority to censor. Yet, exercising that legal authority is usually not productive, and in fact there are other, better ways of limiting the harms caused by speech and information than censorship. Limiting speech might even prove harmful in situations like these, if it ends up restricting people's ability to debunk false rumours. In a separate blog post (to be put up soon), I am examining how all of the government's responses have been flawed both legally and from the perspective of achieving the desired end.</p>
<h2><b>So what should the government have done?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Given that the majority of the information it is targeting is on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, the government could have chosen to fight <i>alongside</i> those services to get content removed expeditiously, rather than fight <i>against</i> them. (There are <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/videos/govt-to-use-social-media-to-prevent-misuse-of-technology-sibal-426231.html">some indications</a> that the government might be working with these services, but it certainly isn't doing enough.)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For instance, it could have asked all of them to expedite their complaints mechanism for a few days, by ensuring that the complaints mechanism is run 24x7 and that they respond quickly to any complaint submitted about communal incitement, spreading of panic, etc. This does not need the passing of an order under any law, but requires good public relations skills and a desire not to treat internet services as enemies. The government could have encouraged regular users to flag false rumours and hate speech on these sites. On such occasions, social networking sites should step up and provide all lawful assistance that the government may require. They should also be more communicative in terms of the help they are providing to the government to curtail panic-inducing rumours and hate speech. (Such measures should largely be reactive, not proactive, to ensure legitimate speech doesn't get curtailed.)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The best antidote for the rumours that spread far and wide and caused a mass movement of people from Bangalore to the North-Eastern states would have been clear debunking of those rumours. Mass outreach to people in the North-East (very often the worried parents) and in Bangalore using SMSes and social media, debunking the very specific allegations and rumours that were floating around, would have been welcome. However, almost no government officials actually used social media platforms to reach out to people to debunk false information and reassure them. Even a Canadian interning in our organization got a reassuring SMS from the Canadian government.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is indeed a pity that the government <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/citizen-engagement-framework-for-e-governance-projects-and-framework-and-guidelines-for-use-of-social-media-by-government-agencies">notified a social media engagement policy today</a>, when the need for it was so very apparent all of the past week.</p>
<h2><b>And what of all this talk of cybersecurity failure and cyber-wars?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Cybersecurity is indeed a cause of concern for India, but only charlatans and the ignorant would make any connection between India's cybersecurity and recent events. The role of Pakistan deserves a few words. Not many Pakistani websites / webpages have been blocked by the Indian government. Two of the Pakistani webpages that have been blocked are actually pages that debunk the fake images that have been doing the rounds in Pakistan for at least the past month. Even Indian websites <a href="http://kafila.org">like Kafila</a> have noted these fake images long ago, and <a href="http://kafila.org/2012/08/05/national-contestation-not-religion-responsible-for-the-plight-of-myanmars-rohingyas-ayesha-siddiqa/">Ayesha Siddiqa wrote about this on August 5, 2012</a>, and <a href="http://kafila.org/2012/08/13/how-to-start-a-riot-out-of-facebook-yousuf-saeed/">Yousuf Saeed wrote about it on August 13, 2012</a>. Even while material that may have been uploaded from Pakistan, it seems highly unlikely they were targeted at an Indian audience, rather than a Pakistani or global one.</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Domain</th><th>Total Number of Entries</th><th>Tuesday, August 21, 2012</th><th>Monday, August 20, 2012</th><th>Sunday, August 19, 2012</th><th>Saturday, August 18, 2012</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ABC.net.au</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>AlJazeera.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>4</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">4</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>AllVoices.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>WN.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>AtjehCyber.net</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>BDCBurma.org</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Bhaskar.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Blogspot.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>4</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">3</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Blogspot.in</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>7</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">3</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Catholic.org</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>CentreRight.in</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>2</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">2</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ColumnPK.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Defence.pk</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>4</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">2</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right; ">
<td style="text-align: left; ">EthioMuslimsMedia.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td>1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Facebook.com (HTTP)</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>75</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">36</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">7</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">18</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">14</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right; ">
<td style="text-align: left; ">Facebook.com (HTTPS)</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>27</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td>3</td>
<td>23</td>
<td>1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Farazahmed.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>5</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Firstpost.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>2</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>HaindavaKerelam.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>HiddenHarmonies.org</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td>1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>HinduJagruti.org</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>2</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Hotklix.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>HumanRights-Iran.ir</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>2</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Intichat.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Irrawady.org</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>IslamabadTimesOnline.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Issuu.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>JafriaNews.com</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>JihadWatch.org</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>2</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">2</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>KavkazCenter</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>MwmJawan.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>My.Opera.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Njuice.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>OnIslam.net</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>PakAlertPress.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Plus.Google.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>4</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reddit.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Rina.in</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>SandeepWeb.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>SEAYouthSaySo.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sheikyermami.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>StormFront.org</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Telegraph.co.uk</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>TheDailyNewsEgypt.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>TheFaultLines.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ThePetitionSite.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>TheUnity.org</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>TimesofIndia.Indiatimes.com <br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>TimesOfUmmah.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Tribune.com.pk</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Twitter.com (HTTP)</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Twitter.com (HTTPS)</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>11</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Twitter account</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>18</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">16</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">2</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>TwoCircles.net</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>2</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">2</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Typepad.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Vidiov.info</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Wikipedia.org</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>3</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">3</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right; ">
<td style="text-align: left; ">Wordpress.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>8</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>YouTube.com</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>85</b></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">18</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">39</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">14</td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">14</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>YouTu.be</td>
<td style="text-align: right; "><b>1</b></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: right; ">1</td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Totals</th><th style="text-align: right; ">309</th><th style="text-align: right; ">65</th><th style="text-align: right; ">88</th><th style="text-align: right; ">80</th><th style="text-align: right; ">75</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>The analysis has been cross-posted/quoted in the following places:</p>
<ol>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/09/04231942/Need-a-standard-strategy-to-de.html">LiveMint</a> (September 4, 2012)</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-the-hindu-aug-26-v-sridhar-regulating-the-internet-by-fiat" class="external-link">The Hindu</a> (August 26, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/08/25/opinion-indias-clumsy-twitter-gamble/">Wall Street Journal</a> (August 25, 2012)</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/tech2-in-com-som-isps-block-wordpress-domain-across-india" class="external-link">tech 2</a> (August 25, 2012)</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-china-post-aug-24-2012-india-threatens-action-against-twitter-for-ethnic-violence-rumors" class="external-link">China Post</a> (August 25, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3812819.ece">The Hindu</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/08/23210529/How-ISPs-block-websites-and-wh.html?atype=tp">LiveMint</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/08/24/india-strong-reactions-to-social-media-censorship/">Global Voices</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/in-reuters-com-david-lalmalsawma-aug-24-2012-indias-social-media-crackdown-reveals-clumsy-govt-machinery" class="external-link">Reuters</a> (August 24, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://bit.ly/PZN75N">Outlook</a> (August 23, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.firstpost.com/tech/epic-fail-how-india-compiled-its-banned-list-of-websites-427522.html">FirstPost.India</a> (August 23, 2012) </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/haphazard-censorship-leaked-list-of-blocked-sites/284592-11.html">IBN Live</a> (August 23, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://newsclick.in/india/analysing-latest-list-blocked-sites-communalism-rioting-edition">News Click</a> (August 23, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.medianama.com/2012/08/223-india-internet-blocks/">Medianama</a> (August 23, 2012)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://kafila.org/2012/08/23/an-analysis-of-the-latest-round-of-internet-censorship-in-india-communalism-and-rioting-edition-pranesh-prakash/">KAFILA</a> (August 23, 2012)</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ciol-com-aug-23-2012-blocked-websites" class="external-link">CIOL</a> (August 23, 2012)</li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analysing-blocked-sites-riots-communalism'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analysing-blocked-sites-riots-communalism</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshIT ActSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet GovernanceFeaturedCensorship2012-09-06T11:52:47ZBlog EntryInternet Analysts Question India’s Efforts to Stem Panic
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-nytimes-vikas-bajaj-aug-21-2012-internet-analysts-question-indias-efforts-to-stem-panic
<b>The Indian government’s efforts to stem a weeklong panic among some ethnic minorities has again put it at odds with Internet companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter. </b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This article by Vikas Bajaj was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/business/global/internet-analysts-question-indias-efforts-to-stem-panic.html">published</a> by New York Times on August 21, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted. This was reposted in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/internet-analysts-question-india-s-efforts-to-stem-panic-257760">NDTV</a> on August 22, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Officials in New Delhi, who have had disagreements with the companies over restrictions on free speech, say the sites are not responding quickly enough to their requests to delete and trace the origins of doctored photos and incendiary posts aimed at people from northeastern India. After receiving threats online and on their phones, tens of thousands of students and migrants from the northeast have left cities like Bangalore, Pune and Chennai in the last week.<br /><br />The government has blocked 245 Web pages since Friday, but still many sites are said to contain fabricated images of violence against Muslims in the northeast and in neighboring Myanmar meant to incite Muslims in cities like Bangalore and Mumbai to attack people from the northeast. India also restricted cellphone users to five text messages a day each for 15 days in an effort to limit the spread of rumors.<br /><br />Officials from Google and industry associations said they were cooperating fully with the authorities. Some industry executives and analysts added that some requests had not been heeded because they were overly broad or violated internal policies and the rights of users.<br /><br />The government, used to exerting significant control over media like newspapers, films and television, has in recent months been frustrated in its effort to extend similar and greater regulations to Web sites, most of which are based in the United States. Late last year, an Indian minister tried to get social media sites to prescreen content created by their users before it was posted. The companies refused and the attempt failed under withering public criticism.<br /><br />While just 100 million of India’s 1.2 billion people use the Internet regularly, the numbers are growing fast among people younger than 25, who make up about half the country’s population. For instance, there were an estimated 46 million active Indian users on Facebook at the end of 2011, up 132 percent from a year earlier.<br /><br />Sunil Abraham, an analyst who has closely followed India’s battles with Internet companies, said last week’s effort to tackle hate speech was justified but poorly managed. He said the first directive from the government was impractically broad, asking all Internet “intermediaries” — a category that includes small cybercafes, Internet service providers and companies like Google and Facebook — to disable all content that was “inflammatory, hateful and inciting violence.”<br /><br />“The Internet intermediaries are responding slowly because now they have to trawl through their networks and identify hate speech,” said Mr. Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society, a research and advocacy group based in Bangalore. “The government acted appropriately, but without sufficient sophistication.”<br /><br />In the days since the first advisory went out on Aug. 17, government officials have asked companies to delete dozens of specific Web pages. Most of them have been blocked, but officials have not publicly identified them or specified the sites on which they were hosted. Ministers have blamed groups in Pakistan, a neighbor with which India has tense relations, for creating and uploading many of the hateful pages and doctored images.<br /><br />A minister in the Indian government, Milind Deora, acknowledged that officials had received assistance from social media sites but said officials were hoping that the companies would move faster.<br /><br />“There is a sense of importance and urgency, and that’s why the government has taken these out-of-the-way decisions with regards to even curtailing communications,” Mr. Deora, a junior minister of communications and information technology, said in a telephone interview. “And we are hoping for cooperation from the platforms and companies to help us as quickly as possible.”<br /><br />Indian officials have long been concerned about the power of modern communications to exacerbate strife and tension among the nation’s many ethnic and religious groups. While communal violence has broadly declined in the last decade, in part because of faster economic growth, many grievances simmer under the surface. Most recently, fighting between the Bodo tribe and Muslims in the northeastern state of Assam has displaced about half a million people and, through text messages and online posts, affected thousands more across India.<br /><br />Officials at social media companies, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending political leaders, said that they were moving as fast as they could but that policy makers must realize that the company officials have to follow their own internal procedures before deleting content and revealing information like the Internet protocol addresses of users.<br /><br />“Content intended to incite violence, such as hate speech, is prohibited on Google products where we host content, including YouTube, Google Plus and Blogger,” Google said in a statement. “We act quickly to remove such material flagged by our users. We also comply with valid legal requests from authorities wherever possible.”<br /><br />Facebook said in a statement that it also restricts hate speech and “direct calls for violence” and added that it was “working through” requests to remove content. Twitter declined to comment on the Indian government’s request.<br /><br />Telecommunications company executives criticized the government’s response to the crisis as being excessive and clumsy. There was no need to limit text messages to just five a day across the country when problems were concentrated in a handful of big cities, said Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India.<br /><br />“It could have been handled much more tactically,” he said.<br /><br />Others said the government could have been more effective had it quickly countered hateful and threatening speech by sending out its own messages, which it was slow to do when migrants from the northeast began leaving Bangalore on Aug. 15.<br /><br />“It has to also reach out on social networking and Internet platforms and dismantle these rumors,” Mr. Abraham said, “and demonstrate that they are false.”</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A version of this article appeared in print on August 22, 2012, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Internet Moves by India to Stem Rumors and Panic Raise Questions.</p>
<hr />
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-nytimes-vikas-bajaj-aug-21-2012-internet-analysts-question-indias-efforts-to-stem-panic'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-nytimes-vikas-bajaj-aug-21-2012-internet-analysts-question-indias-efforts-to-stem-panic</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial mediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-09-04T11:46:03ZNews ItemIndia blocks more than 250 Web sites for inciting hate, panic
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-washington-post-rama-lakshmi-august-20-2012-india-blocks-more-than-250-web-sites-for-inciting-hate-panic
<b>Nearly 80 people have been killed and 400,000 displaced in fighting between Muslims and India’s Hindu Bodo tribespeople in Assam, a northeastern state of India, in recent weeks. The violence has prompted many northeasterners living in major cities to flee, fearing reprisals.</b>
<hr />
<p>The article by Rama Lakshmi was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/india-blocks-more-than-250-web-sites-for-inciting-hate-panic/2012/08/20/aee0b846-eadf-11e1-866f-60a00f604425_story.html">published in the Washington Post</a> on August 20, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted in it.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India blocked about 250 Web sites and social networking sites Monday, accusing them of spreading inflammatory content that <a class="external-link" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-says-websites-in-pakistan-to-blame-for-spreading-panic-among-northeast-indians/2012/08/19/3c793960-e9d4-11e1-9739-eef99c5fb285_story.html">triggered panic</a> among thousands of workers and students from the country’s eight northeastern states last week.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government’s blame list ranged from Facebook to fundamentalist Pakistani sites, Twitter to text messages, and Google to YouTube videos. Authorities also barred the sending of text messages to more than five people at a time for two weeks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Thousands of people from northeastern India fled several cities in the south and west of the country last week after text messages circulated warning that they faced reprisal attacks from Muslims over recent ethnic clashes in the northeastern state of Assam.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government said a number of Web sites had deliberately tried to inflame passions, hosting <a class="external-link" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/exodus-shows-alienation-of-indias-northeast/2012/08/17/63bae21e-e88d-11e1-a3d2-2a05679928ef_story.html">morphed videos of violence</a> against Muslims in Burma and asserting that they were filmed in Assam. The images went viral and provoked riots by Muslim residents of Mumbai just over a week ago.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"We have blocked a number of sites. We have also identified a number of sites which were uploaded from Pakistan," Home Secretary R. K. Singh told reporters in New Delhi on Monday.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik has asked India for evidence about the alleged Pakistani Web sites, which Singh said he would share.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Although some analysts said the curbs were justified because the sites posed a threat to public order, others said the actions were a knee-jerk response from a weak government unable to effectively assuage the concerns of its frightened citizens.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"This is a government that is trying to hide its incompetence by blaming everybody but unwilling to look at itself for failure to protect its citizens," said a government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Others said that by cracking down on Web sites and social media, the government was dodging the deeper issue of the racism and alienation felt by many people from the northeastern states, who are routinely denigrated by their fellow Indians for supposedly being more Chinese or Southeast Asian in appearance.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But India’s <a class="external-link" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/facebook-google-tell-india-they-wont-screen-for-derogatory-content/2011/12/06/gIQAUo59YO_blog.html">relationship with Internet freedom</a> has become increasingly troubled.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the past year, the government has locked horns with Google, Yahoo and Facebook, as well as with local activists and bloggers, over censorship and content screening. Analysts then accused the government of trying to silence middle-class critics at the height of a national <a class="external-link" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/india-blocks-more-than-250-web-sites-for-inciting-hate-panic/2012/08/20/aee0b846-eadf-11e1-866f-60a00f604425_story.html">anti-corruption movement</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government has been holding public meetings on <a class="external-link" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indias-new-internet-rules-criticized/2011/07/27/gIQA1zS2mI_story.html">proposed rules</a> to prohibit Web sites and service providers from hosting information that could be regarded as “harmful,” “blasphemous” or “insulting.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Last year, India topped the list of countries that routinely ask Internet companies to remove content, according to the Google Transparency Report.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Although Internet penetration is still low in India, the country has the third-largest number of Web users in the world, with more than 100 million people accessing the Internet. A <a class="external-link" href="http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2012/8/In_India_1_in_4_Online_Minutes_are_Spent_on_Social_Networking_Sites">new report</a> says that Indians spend one in every four minutes online visiting social networking sites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some free-speech activists fear the events of last week may have provided the government the justification it was seeking to increase Web censorship.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I have fears that the present situation should not cause a disproportionate response which affects freedom of speech online,” said Apar Gupta, a lawyer and advocate for free speech online. “Historically, a national security argument is very tough to dislodge the competing interests of freedom of speech.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Other advocates of Internet freedom say the government is justified in the crackdown but could have opted for a more nuanced approach.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“A blanket ban does not necessarily lead to a reduction in the circulation of rumors because people become more vulnerable in a communication vacuum,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society, an advocacy group based in the southern city of Bangalore, which experienced a mass exodus of frightened northeasterners last week.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Abraham said the government sent out broad instructions to Web sites to block all hate speech, without giving specific definitions or examples. “The government could have done this in a more sophisticated manner, like putting up banner notices on Facebook and Twitter; blocking text messages that had certain key words; or warning the sites to proactively dismantle some content.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian Department of Electronics and Information Technology <a class="external-link" href="http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=86355">said in a statement</a> Monday that it had been working with international social networking sites on the issue but that “a lot more and quicker action is expected from them to address such a sensitive issue.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A Google India official said that “content intended to incite violence is prohibited on YouTube, and we act quickly to remove such material flagged by our users.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-washington-post-rama-lakshmi-august-20-2012-india-blocks-more-than-250-web-sites-for-inciting-hate-panic'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-washington-post-rama-lakshmi-august-20-2012-india-blocks-more-than-250-web-sites-for-inciting-hate-panic</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-22T04:38:26ZNews ItemThe Perils of 'Hactivism'
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-livemint-com-chinmayi-arun-aug-20-2012-perils-of-hactivism
<b>Civil disobedience includes accepting the penalty for breaking the law. Untraceable hackers are far removed from this ethic. </b>
<hr />
<p>Chinmayi Arun's article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/08/19212459/The-perils-of-8216hactivism.html?h=D">published</a> in LiveMint on August 20, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Earlier this year, India had an encounter with “Anonymous”, a diffuse alliance of what are commonly (and incorrectly) called hackers. In its much-publicized “Operation India”, Anonymous blocked public access to, hacked and defaced various websites in protest against the rising censorship of the Internet. This is a legitimate political cause. However, a movement cannot be judged purely by the legitimacy of its goals, and it is important to consider the legitimacy of the means used to achieve these goals.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anonymous used distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to submerge, albeit temporarily, many websites. The DDoS attack bombards the target website with more user requests than it can bear, until it becomes unavailable to all others. Many compare this to picketing, and use the term “virtual sit-in” for it. The DDoS attack does not breach a website’s security, and is therefore not hacking (more correctly called “cracking”). In contrast, defacement of websites, deletion of data or leaking restricted data, entails hacking, which involves breaching a website’s security and is more analogous to breaking and entering physical premises. Anonymous has done this too in India—defacing some websites and leaking confidential data from others.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are a few crucial differences between picketing as civil disobedience, and the DDoS attack. One is that picketing requires many people to come together and sit in protest. One or two peace protesters cannot successfully block a road. Although there was a time when DDoS attacks also required a large number of people to bombard the target, they can now be achieved by one person with the technological skills to “fire” a large number of computers at the target website.Therefore, a DDoS attack no longer implies that a sizeable section of the public cares enough to be part of a virtual sit-in.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second difference between DDoS attacks and civil disobedience lies in the “hacktivists” unwillingness to be accountable. Martin Luther King and Gandhi made it clear that civil disobedience includes accepting the penalty for breaking the law. Faceless untraceable hackers are far removed from this ethic. While it is true that they risk harsh reprisal if identified, the legitimacy and heroic aura of civil disobedience comes from the willingness to risk that reprisal.<br /><br />It may therefore be difficult to argue that even the DDoS attacks by Anonymous qualify as civil disobedience, which arguably is the most legitimate of the spectrum of options available to a political dissident. If political activists use varied and escalating tactics in the physical world, “hacktivists” use strategies ranging from DDoS to more intrusive defacement, disabling and leaking of data to draw attention to political causes. The legitimacy of these methods—the proportionality and justification of harm caused—can only be determined with reference to particular contexts. One has to evaluate the threat necessitating activism, innocent casualties of the activists’ actions and whether less harmful strategies have already been explored. This is difficult. For instance, the indirect repercussions of a DDoS attack or leaking data may not be apparent at first glance.<br /><br />Anonymous tried setting boundaries to avoid harming innocent citizens during Operation India. It declared that infrastructure websites such as the railway booking portal were not to be attacked, and it prevented disclosure of sensitive financial information when a cinema tickets database was hacked. These precautions, though laudable, are however not quite enough. The influential members of Anonymous cannot successfully identify every action that may cause public harm. For instance, when Anonymous attacked the Supreme Court of India and the Reserve Bank of India websites, it seemed ignorant of the potential impact on litigants and the economy. When it leaked confidential police records, it seemed unaware of the significant hazards of leaking people’s names, addresses and other private data. The precautions taken by Anonymous may vanish next time, since the loosely knit, ever-changing nature of Anonymous community means that power and influence can shift; splinter groups with fewer scruples can emerge. Anonymous cannot achieve the control and accountability possible in a more tangible organized group.<br /><br />This collective operates under disturbingly low levels of transparency and accountability, greatly exacerbated by its ability to veil itself in the shadows of the Internet. New recruits are sometimes endangered by misleading information about the legality and consequences of joining in DDoS attacks. Guerilla warfare is often used without properly exploring more peaceable means, thanks to the power and revenge mob-ethic by which Anonymous is driven. The use of technological arsenal to launch cyber-attacks ignores the likelihood of escalation— “hacktivists” tend to forget that technology is a neutral tool that governments can also use. The government may counter-attack, using its considerable resources to acquire the necessary technological capacity. Citizens may end up being the casualties of the exchange.<br /><br />Phase one of Operation India was riddled with moral ambiguity. If OpIndia participants wish to show the world that they are more than bored nerds playing at a social movement like it is a video game, with all the accompanying air-punching, adrenaline boosting, self-aggrandising thrills, they will ensure that phase two’s constructive and legitimate Right to Information campaign is a roaring success.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Chinmayi Arun is an assistant professor of law at National Law University, Delhi and a Fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-livemint-com-chinmayi-arun-aug-20-2012-perils-of-hactivism'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-livemint-com-chinmayi-arun-aug-20-2012-perils-of-hactivism</a>
</p>
No publisherChinmayi ArunInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-20T09:58:55ZBlog EntryRespite from Internet Censorship?
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-thinkdigit-com-nimish-sawant-02-06-2012-respite-from-internet-censorship
<b>Of late, a lot of the blocked websites have started reappearing. So should we sit back and relax? We take a look at how it's not really the start of something beautiful...writes Nimish Sawant. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="http://www.thinkdigit.com/Internet/Respite-from-Internet-Censorship_10347.html">Published in thinkdigit on June 2, 2012</a></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In April, Chennai based Copyrights Labs got a John Doe order (An order against no one in particular) from Madras High Court which ordered ISPs to block several video hosting websites such as Vimeo and Dailymotion along with a string of torrent sites such as Isohunt and Pirate Bay. The motive was to prevent illegal sharing of the movies 3 and Dhammu. The ISPs went on this whole website blocking spree welcoming users with messages such as, “This website has been blocked as per instructions from the Department of Telecom (DoT)”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In June, the Madras High Court issued an order which made it mandatory for complainants to provide exact URLs where they find illegal content, such that ISPs could block only that content and not the entire site.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This order is definitely a relief for Indian internet users, who were facing a variety of blocked websites for a couple of months. In the May-June period there was a lot of media coverage around Internet censorship and then there was the much-hyped Anonymous protest (<a class="external-link" href="http://goo.gl/YCQod">http://goo.gl/YCQod</a>) that saw a not-so-great participation. Just like most media stories, it is slowly departing from the public conciousness. So does this mean our censorship woes are behind us?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Far from it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The dark cloud of Intermediaries Guidelines</b><br />The Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011 were added to the IT Act 2000. According to it, the intermediaries (website, domain registrar, blog owner and so on) guidelines allows the government to pull up any website that hosts “objectionable” content. It gives anyone the right to send “content removal notice” to an intermediary, asking it to be removed within 36 hours. Terms describing such content - grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene - are those that are open to interpretation. So, Facebook can be hauled up for derogatory content or pages on its site. Hell, even if you own a blog and someone else posts a derogatory comment, you can be pulled up.<br /><br />This is a rather smart move by the government to force self-censorship down our throats. Just try imagining - Every 60 seconds: on YouTube there are 48 hours worth of videos uploaded; Wordpress users publish 347 blogs; Twitter users send over 100,000 tweets among others. (Source: <a class="external-link" href="http://goo.gl/U7qT8">http://goo.gl/U7qT8</a>) How on earth is monitoring such a vast amount of data even possible?</p>
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<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/karnikaseth250.jpg" alt="Karnika" class="image-inline" title="Karnika" /></p>
<p>Karnika Seth, Cyberlaw Expert</p>
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<td style="text-align: justify; ">"Any content which is illegal can be blocked by ISP or on directions of a court.A person who uploads illegal content does not have a right to claim that it should not be blocked. But if harmless content is blocked arbitrarily by government or by an ISP, a person can approach the court for a direction that content should not be blocked from public access. No specific section in IT Act entitles a person to sue in such cases . However freedom of speech and expression is our fundamental right guaranteed under Art.19 of the Constitution of India and it is our constitutional right to seek legal redress for its protection by approaching the court."</td>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Every site has internal checks and balances in the form of a 'Report Abuse' option, where users raise flags against content which they may find objectionable and the site takes a call. But with the intermediary rules, the content has to be removed within 36 hours. And here's the kicker – the content can be removed without informing the owner or giving him or her a chance to defend. A political cartoon website cartoonsagainstcorruption.com was a victim of such rules. In March this year, Rajya Sabha MP, P. Rajeeve, had moved a motion calling for the annulment of the intermediaries rules sometime in April. This motion, as would be expected, was defeated by a voice vote.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Any content which is illegal can be blocked by the ISP or on directions of a court. A person who uploads illegal content does not have a right to claim that it should not be blocked. But if harmless content is blocked arbitrarily by government or by an ISP, a person can approach the court for a direction that content should not be blocked from public access,” said cyberlaw expert Karnika Seth. When asked if there is a clause in the IT Act which enables a person to drag the government or the ISP for blocking access to their harmless content on the web, Seth said, “No specific section in the IT Act entitles a person to sue in such cases . However, freedom of speech and expression is our fundamental right guaranteed under Art.19 of the Constitution of India and it is our constitutional right to seek legal redress for its protection by approaching the court.”<br /> <br /> So what should one do if his or her content is blocked due to the blanket ban on websites? “If I am blocked access to my content on the web (say by blocking sites such as Vimeo or Blogspot for instance) I should file an appeal against the John Doe order in the higher court or to the division bench of High court if earlier order has been passed by single bench of the same High court. These provisions are there for any citizen in Procedural Law of India. The IT Act, 2000 need not be invoked,” says Advocate Prashant Mali, President, Cyber Law Consulting.<br /> <br /> Google Transparency report clearly established a link between internet censorship and the government. According to the report, between January and June 2011 Google received 1739 requests for disclosure of user data from the Indian government whereas from July to December 2011, the number of requests by the government went up to 2207. Thankfully Google's compliance rate has come down, but the requests will keep increasing. And this is just Google products we are talking about. Is it then right for just the government to go ahead and draft the rules regarding internet usage? Are there provisions for you, the user to play a part in drafting of these rules. According to Advocate Mali, laws are generally put up for debate on various Government websites. But in the case of the Intermediaries Guidelines, the government used the two-thirds majority to pass the rules.<br /> <br /> According to Sunil Abraham, Director, Centre for Internet and Society – a Bangalore-based internet advocacy group, we are very far in terms of Internet policies. “Dr. Gulshan Rai of CERT-IN has not taken even the public feedback process seriously and does not hold public consultations. This is very unlike TRAI, the telecoms regulator that has a very sophisticated approach towards transparent and participatory policy formulation.” He says that in India there is little transparency in some areas of policy articulation and our representatives do not seem sufficiently interested in protecting the public interest.<br /> <br /> Also according to Adv. Mali, the recent Madras High Court directive asking the ISPs to block only the ‘pirated content’ and not the entire website, is just half the battle won for the ISPs. “If ISP's feel they have won, then that's just half the victory, because if they don't implement the order with full might and even if one copyright gets infringed because of there weak enforcement, then it would amount to Contempt of Court which will land ISP's into soup,” he says.</p>
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<td style="text-align: justify; ">“The Madras High Court judgement which essentially directs ISPs to block “pirated content”, and not the website as a whole, is a good judgment with respect to Internet users, but implementing it selectively would be a mammoth task for ISP's. If ISP's feel they have won, then it's just half the battle won, because if they don't implement the order with full might and even if one copyright gets infringed because of weak enforcement, then it would amount to Contempt of Court which will land ISP's into soup."</td>
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<p><img height="117" src="http://www.thinkdigit.com/FCKeditor/uploads/Adv%20Prashant%20Mali-250%281%29.jpg" title="Advocate Prashant Mali, President, Cyber Law Consulting" width="114" /></p>
<p><b>Advocate Prashant Mali, President, Cyber Law Consulting</b></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Is the Anonymous way, the right way?</b><br /> In June, we saw the global hactivist organisation - Anonymous attacking a string of Government websites and that of ISPs such as Reliance communications, which had blocked access to websites. On June 9, there was a street protest across various metros in India. While the participation was not very encouraging, the sympathy for what Anonymous hackers were doing to those opposing Internet censorship was immense.<br /> <br /> According to Advocate Mali, though the agenda of Anonymous was good, their means of achieving that end were wrong. “One cannot put a gun on the Government’s head in a democracy. If they keep doing this, they will be outlawed. If Anonymous really wants to work for the netizens, they should find better ways to protest instead of those which are cognizable cyber crimes in India.” said Mali.<br /> <br /> According to Abraham, Anonymous are embracing the civil disobedience movement to protest against unjust laws. He feels that it is pertinent for Anonymous to retain the moral high ground. “Breaking into servers, leaks of personal information and defacement of websites is both illegal and also unlikely to win them more supporters from within the policy formulation space,” concurs Abraham.</p>
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<p><img height="166" src="http://www.thinkdigit.com/FCKeditor/uploads/Sunil%20Abraham-250.jpg" title="Sunil Abraham, Director, Centre for Internet and Society" width="250" /></p>
<p><b>Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society</b></p>
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<td style="text-align: justify; ">“The government ie. the government in power, does only frame subsidiary rules. For example – the draconian rules related to reasonable security measures, cyber cafes and intermediaries were drafted in April last year. The main Act in this case the Information Technology Act is framed in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Even though the elected government may dominate the proceedings, if they have a clear majority, the opposition parties must debate every detail especially in laws that affect our civil liberties. Unfortunately, since the Internet is not used by the majority of the population it is politically still an insignificant issue. The private sector cannot frame laws that regulate itself – that would be a contradiction in terms. Citizens cannot be asked to vote in referendums each time laws have to be passed, that would just be too slow. Transparency representative democracy is the online option – unfortunately in India there is little transparency in some areas of policy articulation and our representatives don't seem to be sufficiently interested in protecting the public interest.”</td>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Where do we go from here?</b><br /> So it is safe to say that even though the issue of censorship is not making headlines everyday, it will never will be behind us. “This is just a temporary lull in the storm. Governments are always keen to crack down on free speech and privacy online,” feels Abraham. According to him, projects such as Unique Identification (UID) and National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) means the death of anonymity and pseudonymity for Internet and mobile users in the country.<br /> <br /> On the other hand, Adv. Mali says that so long as the Intermediaries guidelines are part of the IT Act, it will only mean bad news for regular netizens. “Till the rules are effective, censorship and blocking would be a weapon in the hands of the Government, even though it may violate certain Fundamental Rights enshrined by Indian Constitution to Indian Citizens,” he said.<br /> <br /> “Indian Internet users have to be very vigilant – if not, we will loose all our rights and freedoms one by one,” warns Abraham.<br /> <br /> We can just hope that the issue does not get completely out of hand.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-thinkdigit-com-nimish-sawant-02-06-2012-respite-from-internet-censorship'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-thinkdigit-com-nimish-sawant-02-06-2012-respite-from-internet-censorship</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-10T15:51:30ZNews ItemInternet Censorship: Anonymous Can’t be Just Harmful Hackers
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/internet-censorship
<b>If there was ever an interesting time for people concerned with freedom of speech and expression to live in, it is now, and it is definitely in India. It has been a series of battles the last couple of years, where a slightly out-dated government machinery has been trying to control and contain the burgeoning online spaces, only to be put in their place by the new-age tech-ninjas that have risen as the new heroes in our digital times.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nishant Shah's column was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.firstpost.com/tech/internet-censorship-anonymous-protests-should-be-more-than-harmful-hacks-376564.html">published</a> in the First Post on July 13, 2012</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We might not have had our Wikileaks moment in India yet, but the recent consolidation of resources by civic hacker groups and a public outrage against top-down blocking of everyday webspaces have steadily and surely put the questions of censorship and freedom on our minds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The protests have taken many forms – from civic action routes of campaigns and petitions by civil society and non-governmental organisations to guerrilla warfare in the shape of distributed denial of service attacks and hacking of government websites.</p>
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<p><img class="wp-image-376597 size-full" height="176" src="http://www.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Anonymous_AP_NEW.jpg" title="Anonymous_AP_NEW_13JULY" width="235" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">Anonymous must be more than just a hacker group: AP</p>
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<p>A lot of these efforts have found popular interest and media attention, but they haven’t always found a solid ground for negotiation and dialogue with the policy makers and legislators designing this information regime. However, after the first off-line mobilisation of protests by Anonymous in India, the government has had to face the fact that the clicktivist users are not going to remain passive, merely venting their discontent on their blogs and social networking spaces.</p>
<p>With the sustained and systemic attacks on government, public and corporate websites, revealing sensitive information and taking down web resources the new hackers have shown that they mean business. In a recent attack, Anonymous hacked the Tamil Nadu police’s websites and revealed information about the complaints people have made and the actions taken on them.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">They leaked the document under their Twitter handle ‘opindia_revenge’ to show the police inaction. The documents have redacted some information but it has also revealed personally identified data about the people involved, without taking into consideration that it might affect the people involved in the cases adversely. Acts like these have the cybercrime bureau now tracking down the attackers and taking the help of Internet Service Providers and other intermediaries to punish those responsible.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What the outcomes of this battle are going to be, will eventually change the ways in which our digital publics shape up. Given the lack of resistance that ISPs have shown in the past, when pressed for private information on suspicious users, the chances are that we might soon have a public spectacles of hacker-criminals. Looking at the past bungles in this arena, one also hopes that it will not be yet another instance of mixed up administration leading to wrong and misplaced prosecution.<br /><br />But more than anything else, one hopes that the attackers, who have seen their protests as a part of their civic action and right to protest and demonstrate, have been wise enough to protect themselves because they are going to be tracked and tried as criminals if they are caught.<br /><br />Much can be said about the nature of civic hacking, and much has already been said, heralding them as code warriors and berating them as a public nuisance. But in all that cacophony, we might need to separate the ideology (constitutional rights, free speech and expression) from the tactics (DDoS, hacking, parking on websites) and see what interests they eventually serve.<br /><br />Because even as my heart sings with these sounds of protests, there is a growing alarm that these seemingly radical guerrilla warfare might actually be more counter-productive than helpful to the cause of building an open and inclusive internet.<br /><br />Over the last years, many civil society and citizen collectives have realised that policies and regulation are more a dialogue than open warfare. Polarising ourselves on an axis of ‘good versus bad’, at the end of the day, only leads to more regulation and draconian measures because it makes the state feel under threat. Considerable energy has gone into building a culture of public policy consultations and dialogue that allows for different stakeholders to work towards a collective future of the internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And so we come back to the question of whose interest gets served in the spate of these attacks? This is the same question that haunts us when we hear about our favourite political parties taking to destroying public property and blocking public infrastructure. It is the question that resurfaces when you realise that you might agree with the politics but the tactics are actually harming what you think is important.<br /><br />In the case of the Anonymous attacks, it unfortunately seems more bravado and aspiration to radical heroism than a sustained and strategic set of interventions. With this particular act they seemed to have not only hurt the people on whose behalf they are fighting, but also given the government more reasons and plausible excuses to exercise more regulation and control over the digital technologies.<br /><br />The attacks are a bold move to put the questions of censorship into public discourse, and force the state to acknowledge the problems with its governance. But it would be great to see if we can build on these energies and momentum and lead to a more sustained engagement with the political questions at stake, so at to construct a larger movement to protect our rights to free speech and expression that is beyond the world of ad-hoc hacking and random acts of protest.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/internet-censorship'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/internet-censorship</a>
</p>
No publishernishantInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-08-06T06:56:50ZBlog EntryInternet Freedom At Home: Governments, Companies Need Accountability, Speakers Say
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/internet-freedom-at-home
<b>The freedom to access the internet does not translate into freedom of expression in many countries of the world, including in western economies, according to speakers at a peer forum organised yesterday by the United States mission to the United Nations in Geneva.</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/06/22/internet-freedom-at-home-governments-companies-need-accountability-speakers-say/"><span class="visualHighlight">Catherine Saez wrote this for Intellectual Property Watch on June 22, 2012</span></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Both governments and companies, prime providers of internet surveillance technologies in particular in the developed countries, need to be held accountable for the destination and use of those technologies, some of which run counter to human rights.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The peer forum on internet freedom and human rights was held on 21 June and gathered technology experts, and human right activists, with the participation of the mission’s <a class="external-link" href="http://geneva.usmission.gov/us-hrc/internet-freedom-fellows-2012/"><span class="visualHighlight">Internet Freedom Fellows programme</span></a>, organised since 2011 in parallel with the UN Human Rights Council.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Freedom to connect exists in most countries where internet surveillance runs counter to human rights but not freedom from fear, Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN journalist and co-founder of <a class="external-link" href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/"><span class="visualHighlight">Global Voices Online</span></a> said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Internet freedom does not mean just free networks, it means free people,” MacKinnon said. “Accomplishing that and constraining the abuse of power across digital networks is a tough problem.”<b></b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Strong Global Standard Needed, Democracies also Concerned</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the Internet Age, it is technically trivial both for corporations and governments to gain access to people’s private communications, she said. The issue is that without strong global standards the empowering potential of the internet is going to be diminished, she said. This is true not only for interconnection but also public transparency and accountability in how surveillance technologies are developed, deployed. And it applies to how information is shared between governments and between companies and governments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Even in democracies, “we are really struggling” with the issue of how to make sure that in the legitimate fight against crime, terrorism, cyber attacks, which all are real problems, the mechanisms put in place are not abused, she said. How can it ensured that those who hold power through those mechanisms will be accountable when they use that power for purposes that were not intended, she asked. She cited a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union http://www.aclu.org/spy-files on widespread surveillance by US law enforcement agencies across the US.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Surveillance technologies “are being sold very obviously to governments who clearly are going to abuse that technology,” she said. She mentioned what has been nicknamed the “Wiretappers’ Ball” to describe trade fairs run by a company which invites law enforcement and security agencies from around the world to meet with companies that built those technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last one of those fairs was held “not too far from Washington, DC” and 35 US federal agencies were present, along with representatives of 43 different countries, she said, with ” no questions asked.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A lot of these technologies are being built or developed primarily by western companies with western governments as prime customers, but are being sold blatantly to countries like Azerbaijan (which has been reported recently for its crackdown on free expression) and others, she said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As a major customer, the United States needs to demand transparency on the part of these companies about where those technologies are being sold and used, MacKinnon said, adding, “Internet freedom starts at home.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There is a need to demand that governments be accountable and transparent on what surveillance technologies exist and how they are being deployed and used, and not only at the domestic level, but globally.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As an example of transparency, she cited the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/?hl=en_US"><span class="visualHighlight">Google transparency report</span></a>, which lists the number of requests from governments around the world both for user information and takedown requests. MacKinnon said the top requesters were democratic governments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">All companies should be requested to provide similar transparency reports, she said, and governments should also issue transparency reports about the number of requests they are making. “There should be ways to do this without compromising active investigation,” she said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">MacKinnon recently published a book entitled, “Consent of the Networked.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Internet: Shopping Mall or Public Square<br /></b>A panel discussion addressed the protection of human rights in a world of global networks in which two visions of the internet were described. One is§ the internet as a shopping mall, mainly owned by private interests, the other one as a public square.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Robert Whelan from the International Committee of the Red Cross raised the concept of informed consent in the context of victims of armed conflicts. The victims of violation of human rights law have the right to know what information is going to be used about their experience, or their story, he said. They should know where this information will go, who is going to see it, have access to it, where that information is going to be replicated or reproduced and when will that information will be deleted, he added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The challenge is to put the civilian victims at the centre, and in control of the information about their experience. This is at odds with the concept of free exchange of information, he said, citing as examples the “re-tweeting” and reproducing of articles, photographs and names on the internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nicolas Seidler from the Internet Society said the internet is not “the wild west” but just the digital version of the real world, and as such is subject to the same human rights instruments. The challenge is that no new rights are needed; rather the need is to implement and reinforce human rights standards on the internet, he said. Governments’ management of the internet is but a reflection of their overall management, he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For Brett Solomon, executive director of <a class="external-link" href="https://www.accessnow.org/"><span class="visualHighlight">Accessnow.org</span></a>, a US-based nongovernmental organisation pushing for digital freedom, several issues are laid out in the “<a class="external-link" href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/access.3cdn.net/d9369de5fc7d7dc661_k3m6i2tbd.pdf"><span class="visualHighlight">Silicon Valley Standard</span></a>” [pdf]. The standard was developed after the Silicon Valley human rights conference held in San Francisco in 2011.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The effort to protect rights holders and copyrights by the copyright industry, which he qualified as “voracious,” is putting internet intermediaries at risk of liability, he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Effective internet security is essential, he said, as “there is no freedom of speech unless people feel safe and secure.” He called for the right to encryption of web activity. “Technology companies must provide a basic level of security … to their users by default and resist bans and curtailments of the use of encryption,” the standard says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">David Sullivan, policy and communications director for the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/"><span class="visualHighlight">Global Network Initiative</span></a> (GNI) presented the initiative, which gathers information and communication technology stakeholders and provides a framework for companies based on international standards. Companies that commit to GNI standards also commit to being assessed independently, he said, on how they implement principles, if they have policies and procedures in place to meet standards and accountability commitments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sullivan cited the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the failed US legislation, as a policy effort aimed at solving one problem around copyright infringing material that is was “going to have deeply worrisome repercussions around the world as other countries look at that example in ways that could have deeply problematic consequences in terms of censorship.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This year, the human right activists participating in the Internet Freedom Fellows programme are: Dishad Othman from Syria, Pranesh Prakash from India, Koundjoro Gabriel Kambou from Burkina Faso, Sopheap Chak from Cambodia, Andreas Azpurua from Venezuela and Emin Milli from Azerbaijan. Short <a class="external-link" href="http://geneva.usmission.gov/us-hrc/internet-freedom-fellows-2012/"><span class="visualHighlight">biographies are here</span></a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Emin Milli, a writer who was imprisoned for expressing his opinion in Azerbajian, said he looked at internet as a public square and not a shopping mall but the situations vastly differ from one country to the other, he added, as contexts are very different. The Eurovision song contest, which was held in the country this year, was a great opportunity for civil society, with the help of international media to draw attention to the situation of Azerbaijan.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Dishad Othman, a Syrian activist and IT engineer, characterised himself as a security activist as he is helping people to use tools to hide themselves on the internet. Sharing experiences from different countries is very important, he said, calling for a larger group of international activists who could help people but also technology companies to provide a safer environment and to promote freedom on the internet so that “all people can benefit from it.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, said people have tools to protect themselves from surveillance that they do not use. In particular, he said, many journalists do not know how to use those tools, especially in the context of journalists’ computers and files that are seized, endangering their sources.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/internet-freedom-at-home'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/internet-freedom-at-home</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-06-28T05:27:43ZNews ItemNo more blocking of entire websites?
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/no-more-blocking-of-websites
<b>The Madras HC has taken one step to ensure that entire websites are no longer blocked, but it doesn't mean that arbitrary takedowns will cease. </b>
<p><span>CIS research is quoted in this article by Danish Sheikh published in the </span><a href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/no-more-blockingentire-websites/478261/">Business Standard on June 24, 2012</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Vimeo’s back. As is Pastebin, and Pirate Bay and IsoHunt. For your, you know, legitimate file-sharing practices.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Having been approached by a consortium of Internet Service Providers, the Madras High Court has issued a welcome clarification of its “John Doe order” issued in favour of RK Productions for the films 3 and Dammu. Designed to protect against potential offences by yet-unidentified persons, the sweeping scope of the order left a very wide, undefined scope to ISPs dealing with potentially infringing material. The ISPs over-complied, a host of file-sharing websites were barred from Indian servers overnight — oh, and “Anonymous” got more annoyed. Note here that the vagueness of the order extended to not specifying any infringing websites in particular.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Following the representation from the ISPs, the Court has provided them a specific directive. The new order states that the interim injunction was granted only with respect to the particular URL which featured the infringing movie, and not the entire website. No more blocking entire websites — the ISPs are now required to be informed about the particulars of where the infringing movie is kept within 48 hours.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The clarification couldn’t have come at a more vital time, and will hopefully serve as a precedent to curb an alarming practice that can be traced back to 2002. Back then, the Delhi High Court was approached in a matter concerning the unauthorised transmission of Ten Sports by unlicensed cable operators. The result was the Court’s first John Doe order with respect to media transmission: a commissioner was appointed to search premises of unnamed cable operators and seize evidence by taking photographs and video films. This particular order was then relied on by the Court almost a decade later in pre-emptively injuncting piracy of UTV Software Communication’s Saat Khoon Maaf and Thank You. The trend escalated from there, with similar orders being obtained for a number of films including Don 2, Bodyguard, Kahaani and Department, to name a few.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Where the last few years have seen a steadily rising output of orders largely from the Delhi and Madras High Court, just last week it was the Bombay High Court that joined the fray. Approached by Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, it passed a John Doe pre-emptively banning the piracy of Viacom’s Gangs of Wasseypur prior to its June 22 release. Considering the Bombay High Court’s noted apprehension in granting ex-parte orders, this decision looked set to add further momentum to the John Doe juggernaut.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Instead, we get the Madras High Court’s welcome restraint. That vague injunctions are an abuse of process is a principle that has been noted time and again, with the Delhi High Court even noting that “vague and general injunction of anticipatory nature can never be granted”. This is coupled with the larger access to information and free speech issue that has been raised more vocally following the ire with the mass block of file-sharing websites. The antecedents to this scenario may well be the media infrastructure cases of the ‘50s and ‘60s, where newspaper content was indirectly being regulated by way of regulation of newsprint, advertisement space, etc. Recognising these indirect control mechanisms in their ultimate speech-restricting form, the Supreme Court struck them down as unreasonable restrictions to the right to free expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Prevention isn’t always better than cure. The Madras High Court has thankfully taken one step in the direction. What is left dangling is the other big question — that of the intermediary rules. There may now be a barrier to blocking of entire websites in this manner, but as so many internet users have found, one doesn’t have to necessarily approach the Courts if they want internet service providers to take down content: the ISPs are happy to do that for free. As a Centre for Internet and Society study found, takedown requests sent to ISPs, no matter how trivial or flimsy, will for the most part be met by acquiescence of the order. Without appropriate checks and balances, the intermediary will over-comply.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the ISPs’ intervention before the Madras High Court is an encouraging sign, it doesn’t mean that the arbitrary takedowns under the intermediary rules will cease to happen. The digital media site Medianama quotes an ISP representative citing concern that ISPs were being wrongfully vilified on the Internet — and (significantly) that it would adversely impact their business if video streaming was disabled for users. The same commercial considerations wouldn’t likely stand when it comes to the bit-by-bit requests that come forward under the IT rules. Along with focusing attention on the High Court’s clarification, we need to sustain the movement to strike down the intermediary rules and push for a more transparent and fair mechanism.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/no-more-blocking-of-websites'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/no-more-blocking-of-websites</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-06-26T09:47:02ZNews ItemIndia: The New Front Line in the Global Struggle for Internet Freedom
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/india-the-new-front-line-in-the-global-struggle-for-internet-freedom
<b>The government tussles with Internet freedom activists in the world's largest democracy.</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/india-the-new-front-line-in-the-global-struggle-for-internet-freedom/258237/">This article was published in the Atlantic on June 7, 2012</a></p>
<p>This Saturday, Indian Internet freedom advocates are planning to stage a nation-wide protest against what they see as their government's increasingly restrictive regulation of the Internet. An amorphous alliance of concerned citizens and activist hackers intend to use the streets and the Internet itself to make their opposition felt. </p>
<p>Over the last year, as Americans were focused on the domestic debates surrounding the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml">Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA)</a>, or on the more brazen displays of online censorship by mainstays of Internet restriction like China, Iran and Pakistan, India was rapidly emerging as a key battleground in the worldwide struggle for Internet freedom.</p>
<p>The confrontation escalated in April 2011, when the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology introduced sweeping new rules regulating the nature of material that Internet companies could host online. In response, civil liberties groups, Internet freedom supporters, and a growing assembly of online activist hackers have been fighting back, initiating street protests, organizing online petitions, and launching -- under the banner of the "Anonymous" hacker group -- a torrent of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against Indian government and industry web sites. </p>
<p>The <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR314E_10511%281%29.pdf">April 2011 rules</a>, an update to India's <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/downloads/itact2000/it_amendment_act2008.pdf">Information Technology Act</a> (IT Act) of 2000 (amended in 2008), popularly known as the "intermediary guidelines," instruct online "intermediaries" -- companies that provide Internet access, host online content, websites, or search services -- to remove, within 36 hours, any material deemed to be "grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous," "ethnically objectionable," or "disparaging" by any Internet user who submits a formal objection letter to that intermediary. Under the guidelines, any resident of India can compel Google, at the risk of criminal and/or civil liability, to remove content from its site that the resident finds politically, religiously, or otherwise "objectionable." </p>
<p>Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal -- the intermediary guidelines' most important government evangelist, and the head of the agency responsible for administering the guidelines -- even <a class="external-link" href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/india-asks-google-facebook-others-to-screen-user-content/">instructed Internet companies</a> to go one step further and start pre-screening content for removal before it was flagged by concerned users. This requires companies like Facebook, in effect, to determine what material might offend its users and thus violate Indian law, and then remove it from the website. With <a class="external-link" href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-12-15/news/30520358_1_e-commerce-indian-internet-space-internet-and-mobile-association">over 100 million Internet users</a> in India, no company could possibly monitor all its content through human intervention alone; web companies would have to set up filters and other mechanisms to take down potentially objectionable content more or less automatically.</p>
<p>India's constitution, in large part crafted in response to the modern country's harrowing history of religious and communal violence, allows for "reasonable restrictions" on free speech. Indian officials have at times banned certain books, movies, or other materials touching on such sensitive subjects as religion and caste. </p>
<p>Left with little choice but to comply or risk legal action, Google, Yahoo!, and other Internet companies acquiesced and <a class="external-link" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/06/india-internet-idUSL4E8D66SM20120206">began pulling down </a>webpages after receiving requests to do so. Yet many companies refused to remove all the content requested, prompting Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasm, an Islamic scholar, and journalist Vinay Rai, respectively, to file civil and criminal suits against 22 of the largest Internet companies operating in India. The targets, including Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, and Microsoft, were accused of failing to remove material deemed to be offensive to the Prophet Mohammed, Jesus, several Hindu gods and goddesses, and various political leaders. </p>
<p>The companies have had some success in the litigation: Google India, Yahoo!, and Microsoft have all <a class="external-link" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304356604577341101544076864.html">been dropped</a> from the civil case after the court heard preliminary arguments; the Delhi High Court recently dismissed Microsoft from the criminal case. Otherwise, both cases are still ongoing.</p>
<p>India has taken its Internet regulation internationally, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thinkdigit.com/Internet/India-asks-US-to-remove-objectionable-content_9366.html">asking</a> the United States government to ensure that India-specific objectionable content is removed from sites such as Facebook, Google, and YouTube, and suggesting that these companies should be asked to relocate their servers to India in to order better to regulate the content locally.</p>
<p>The Indian government's state-centric view of Internet regulation and governance is also clear in their approach to international governance. Citing the need for more governmental input in the Internet's development and what happens online, India formally <a class="external-link" href="http://content.ibnlive.in.com/article/21-May-2012documents/full-text-indias-un-proposal-to-control-the-internet-259971-53.html">proposed the creation</a> of the Committee for Internet Related Policies (CIRP) at the 2011 United Nations General Assembly. The CIRP would be an entirely new multilateral UN body responsible for coordinating virtually all Internet governance functions, including multilateral treaties. </p>
<p>To be fair, some Indians see these as efforts not to impose censorship but to allow a greater degree of Indian and international control over a system considered by many in India and elsewhere to be <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3426292.ece">under the thumb of the U.S. government</a>. </p>
<p>Yet some Internet experts in both India and the West are criticizing the CIRP proposal as part of "<a class="external-link" href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-21/internet/31800574_1_governance-cyber-security-internet">thinly masked efforts to control or shape the Internet</a>," as one Indian official put it. They<a class="external-link" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-waz/internet-governance-at-a-_b_1203125.html"> warn</a> that a state-centric system of Internet governance could lead to serious restrictions on the type of information available online, and damage the Internet's potential for innovation.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/IndiaAnonymous.jpg/image_preview" alt="India Anonymous" class="image-inline image-inline" title="India Anonymous" /></p>
<p>India's Internet freedom advocates are straining to keep up with the rapid pace of the last year. But, now, they're gathering some steam. Online petitions against the intermediary guidelines, the IT Act, and censorship in India in general have appeared on <a class="external-link" href="https://www.change.org/petitions/mps-of-india-support-the-annulment-motion-to-protect-internet-freedom-stopitrules">Change.org</a> and <a class="external-link" href="https://www.facebook.com/saveyourvoice">Facebook</a>; <a class="external-link" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtA194jig3s">protest videos</a> are popping up on Youtube. The Centre for Internet and Society, a web-focused think tank, released an <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/chilling-effects-on-free-expression-on-internet" class="external-link">extensive report highlighting</a> the intermediary guidelines' effects on freedom online. The Internet Democracy Project <a class="external-link" href="http://lighthouseinsights.in/bloggers-against-internet-censorship.html">organized a day-long training program</a> on freedom of expression and censorship for bloggers entitled "Make Blog not War." FreeSoftware Movement Karnataka organized a protest of hundreds of students in Bangalore, India's IT hub. And Save Your Voice activists <a class="external-link" href="http://kafila.org/2012/04/22/freedom-in-the-cage-photos-from-a-protest-against-internet-censorship-in-delhi/">held a sit in</a> outside Delhi's Jantar Mantar monument to pressure lawmakers.</p>
<p>Yet, not all the opposition has been so civil. Hackers, operating under the umbrella of the techno-libertarian hacker community, "Anonymous," are waging their own, less lawful fight against the government as well as the Internet companies that have, in their view, too readily complied with the government's censorship demands. </p>
<p>On May 17, Anonymous hackers attacked a number of Indian <a class="external-link" href="http://tech2.in.com/news/web-services/supreme-court-website-hacked-in-response-to-tpb-vimeo-block/307532">government websites</a>, including the Indian Supreme Court, the Reserve Bank of India, the ruling Congress Party and its <a class="external-link" href="http://windowsera.com/anonymous-india-hacks-aitmc-mizoram-government-website-redirects-to-twitter">coalition partners</a>, as well as the opposition Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), making them all inaccessible for several hours. </p>
<p>Moreover, just this past week, Anonymous broke into the websites and servers of a number of Internet Service Providers, including <a class="external-link" href="http://www.firstpost.com/tech/anonymous-strikes-rcom-to-protest-india-net-censorship-322241.html">Reliance Communications</a>, seemingly to punish them for complying with government orders to block file-sharing hosts such as Pirate Bay and Vimeo. Once in the ISPs' servers, the hackers accessed their lists of <a class="external-link" href="http://tech2.in.com/news/general/anonymous-india-releases-blocked-sites-list-plans-peaceful-protest/310682">blocked sites</a> -- which they then distributed to media outlets. They also redirected people who tried to reach Reliance's site to an Anonymous <a class="external-link" href="http://www.cio.in/sites/default/files/topstory/2012/05/reliance_network_hacked.JPG">protest page</a>. </p>
<p>Building on the momentum of these attacks, and on the anti-censorship outrage growing across India, Anonymous <a class="external-link" href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-31/internet/31920036_1_occupy-protests-government-sites-website">has called for a national day of protest</a> in 11 Indian cities this Saturday, and an additional series online attacks against government and industry websites. The occupy-style protests -- which Anonymous insists will be non-violent -- are to include awareness campaigns on Facebook and other social networking sites. Protesters are being asked to don the <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anonymous_at_Scientology_in_Los_Angeles.jpg">Guy Fawkes mask</a>, a symbol now associated with Anonymous, among other protest movements, both in the streets and on their Facebook profiles. </p>
<p>It's unclear how much support the June 9 protest will receive, or how serious the planned Anonymous attacks with be, but given the attention that the announcement has attracted in the Indian media, it seems likely that people will at least be paying attention. And even if this weekend the protest fails to attract the type of large and vocal response protest organizers are hoping it will, that it's come so far is an indication that neither side looks ready to back down.</p>
<p>Still, the government has given some small signs recently that it is reconsidering its position on the "intermediary guidelines," if not on Internet regulation more generally. Information Technology Minister Sibal, under pressure from the political opposition and after Parliament Member P. Rajeeve tabled a motion to seek rescission of the new rules,<a class="external-link" href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/kapil-sibal-promises-to-rethink-on-internet-censorship/1/189265.html"> indicated</a> that he would reconsider his previous positions, and the government has agreed to <a class="external-link" href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-18/news/31765682_1_internet-rules-arun-jaitley-information-technology-rules">reexamine the rules</a>. </p>
<p>This is an encouraging sign, although it's unlikely that any government action will come in time to forestall this weekend's protests. But even if the intermediary guidelines are ultimately rescinded, India will likely continue its soul-searching on how it deals with the Internet.</p>
<p>As the world's largest democracy and a model for much of the developing world, and with an Internet population anticipated to surpass that of the United States in the next few years, India is an important, maybe the most important, test case for the future of Internet freedom globally. Should India continue down a course of restriction, other nations eager to restrict online speech could see precedent to impose their own technical and political barriers to free expression online. It would be a tragic irony if India, as one of the developing world's greatest beneficiaries of the information revolution, ended up curbing those same free flows of information and ideas.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/india-the-new-front-line-in-the-global-struggle-for-internet-freedom'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/india-the-new-front-line-in-the-global-struggle-for-internet-freedom</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet GovernanceIntermediary LiabilityCensorship2012-06-18T07:10:21ZNews ItemIndia's struggle for online freedom
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/indias-struggle-for-online-freedom
<b>"65 years since your independence," a new battle for freedom is under way in India — according to a YouTube video uploaded by an Indian member of Anonymous, the global "hacktivist" movement.
</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/indias-struggle-for-online-freedom-20120608-2016i.html">Rebecca MacKinnon's article was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on June 9, 2012</a></p>
<p>With popular websites like Vimeo.com blocked across India by court order, the video calls for action: "Fight for your rights. Fight for India." Over the past several weeks, the group has launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against websites belonging to internet service providers, government departments, India's Supreme Court, and two political parties.</p>
<p>Street protests are being planned for today in as many as 18 cities to protest laws and other government actions that a growing number of Indian internet users believe have violated their right to free expression and privacy online.</p>
<p>A lively national internet freedom movement has grown rapidly across India since the beginning of this year.</p>
<p>The most colourful highlight so far was a seven-day Gandhian hunger strike, otherwise known as a "freedom fast," held in early May on a New Delhi pavement by political cartoonist Aseem Trivedi and activist-journalist Alok Dixit. Trivedi's website was shut down this year in response to a police complaint by a Mumbai-based advocate who alleged that some of Trivedi's works "ridicule the Indian Parliament, the national emblem, and the national flag."</p>
<p>Escalating political and legal battles over internet regulation in India are the latest front in a global struggle for online freedom — not only in countries like China and Iran where the internet is heavily censored and monitored by autocratic regimes, but also in democracies where the political motivations for control are much more complicated.</p>
<p>Democratically elected governments all over the world are failing to find the right balance between demands from constituents to fight crime, control hate speech, keep children safe, and protect intellectual property, and their duty to ensure and respect all citizens' rights to free expression and privacy. Popular online movements — many of them globally interconnected — are arising in response to these failures.</p>
<p>Only about 10 per cent of India's population uses the web, making it unlikely that internet freedom will be a decisive ballot-box issue anytime soon. Yet activists are determined to punish New Delhi's "humourless babus," as one columnist recently called India's censorious politicians and bureaucrats, in the country's media. Grassroots organisers are bringing a new generation of white-collar protesters to the streets to defend the right to use a technology that remains alien to the majority of India's people.</p>
<p>The trouble started with the 2008 passage of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, whose Section 69 empowers the government to direct any internet service to block, intercept, monitor, or decrypt any information through any computer resource.</p>
<p>Company officials who fail to comply with government requests can face fines and up to seven years in jail. Then, in April 2011, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology issued new rules under which internet companies are expected to remove within 36 hours any content that regulators designate as "grossly harmful," "harassing," or "ethnically objectionable" — designations that are open to a wide variety of interpretations and that free speech advocates argue have opened the door to abuse.</p>
<p>It is thanks to these rules that the website of the hunger-striking cartoonist, Trivedi, was taken offline. Also thanks to the 2011 rules, Facebook and Google are facing trial for having failed to remove objectionable content. If found guilty, the companies could face fines, and executives could be sentenced to jail time.</p>
<p>Saturday's protesters are calling for annulment of the 2011 rules and the repeal of part of the 2008 act. They are also calling for internet service companies to reverse the wholesale blocking of hundreds of websites, including the file-sharing services isoHunt and The Pirate Bay, as well as the video-sharing site Vimeo and Pastebin, which is primarily used for the sharing of text and links.</p>
<p>Internet service providers were responding to a court order from the Madras High Court demanding the blockage, which is aimed at preventing the online distribution of pirated versions of one particular film. The internet companies, fearing that they would not be able to catch every individual instance on every possible site they host, instead chose to block entire services along with all of their content — which had nothing to do with the film in question.</p>
<p>Such "John Doe" orders, named because they are directed against unknown potential offenders in the present and future, are characterised "by their overly broad and sweeping nature," argue lawyer Lawrence Liang and researcher Achal Prabhala, which extends "to a range of non-infringing activities as well, thus catching a whole range of legal acts in their net."</p>
<p>More broadly, as Delhi-based journalist Shivam Vij wrote in a recent essay: "The current mechanisms of internet censorship in India — blocking, direct removal requests to websites, intermediary rules — are draconian and unconstitutional. They need to be replaced with a new set of rules that are fair, transparent and accessible for public scrutiny. They should not be amenable to misuse by the powers-that-be for their own private interests."</p>
<p>Not only are the rules abused, but researchers find that they are causing extralegal censorship by companies that overcompensate in order to err on the side of caution. Last year, the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society performed an experiment in which it sent "legally flawed" takedown demands to seven companies that provide a range of online services, including search, online shopping, and news with user-generated comments.</p>
<p>The legal flaws in the notices were such that the companies could have rejected them without being in breach of the law. Yet "of the 7 intermediaries to which takedown notices were sent, 6 intermediaries over-complied with the notices, despite the apparent flaws in them," reads the Centre for Internet and Society report.</p>
<p>Despite the growing public opposition, a motion to annul the 2011 rules was defeated by voice vote in the upper house of Parliament last month. Yet the criticism was sufficiently sharp that Communications Minister Kapil Sibal announced that he will hold consultations with all members of Parliament, representatives of industry, and other "stakeholders" to discuss the law's problems and how it might be revised.</p>
<p>Many of the law's critics, however, are skeptical that this will eliminate the law's deep flaws and loopholes for abuse, especially given the government's failure to listen so far. Comments on the 2011 rules submitted last year by the Centre for Internet and Society were not even acknowledged as having been received by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. "Sibal uses the excuse of national security and hate speech," says the center's director, Sunil Abraham, "but that is not what is happening."</p>
<p>Abraham worries that what is really happening is a government effort at Internet "behavior modification" through a process akin to an experiment involving caged monkeys, bananas, and ice water. Put four monkeys in a cage and hang a bunch of bananas on the ceiling. Every time one of them climbs up to reach the bananas, you drench all of them with ice water.</p>
<p>Soon enough, the monkeys will start policing themselves — attacking anybody who tries to reach the bananas, making it unnecessary for their masters to deploy the ice water. "This is why the government is being so aggressive so early on, with only 10 percent of India's population online," says Abraham. "If you start the drenching early on, by the time you get to 50 per cent [internet penetration], every one will be well-behaved monkeys."</p>
<p>Companies will act as private internet police for fear of legal punishment before the government is called upon to step in and enforce the law. If it works, Indian politicians could have fewer reasons to worry about online critiques or mockery, because companies fearing prosecution will proactively delete speech that could potentially be designated "harassing" or "grossly harmful."</p>
<p>India is not China or Iran, however. Its politicians may be corrupt, and most of its voters may not understand why Internet freedom matters because they've never used the Internet. But it still has an independent press and boisterous civil society that are not going to give up their critiques and protests anytime soon. India also has a strong, independent judiciary, with a record of ruling against censorship and surveillance measures when a strong case can be made that they conflict with constitutional protections of individual rights. "On free speech I have high faith in the Indian judiciary," says Abraham. "There is a good chance to launch a constitutional challenge."</p>
<p>If Google and Facebook lose at their impending trial — now scheduled for July — they will most certainly appeal, which activists hope could provide just such an opportunity to prevent the sort of "behaviour modification" process that Abraham warns against.</p>
<p>Now India's burgeoning internet freedom movement needs its own reverse "behaviour modification" strategy — imposing consistent and regular doses of political and legal ice water upon India's bureaucrats, politicians, and companies whenever they do things that threaten to corrode the rights of India's internet users. Saturday's protest is just the beginning.</p>
<p><em>Sunil Abraham is quoted in the article. The report on Intermediary Guidelines co-produced by CIS and Google is also mentioned.</em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/indias-struggle-for-online-freedom'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/indias-struggle-for-online-freedom</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaPrivacyFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-06-18T06:39:32ZNews Item'Anonymous' hackers to protest Indian Internet laws
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/anonymous-hackers-to-protest-indian-internet-laws
<b>Global hacking movement Anonymous has called for protesters to take to the streets in 16 cities around India on Saturday over what it considers growing government censorship of the Internet, writes Pratap Chakravarty. </b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gsnDdnLf9f_PmycvKCR-5aHsJiNw?docId=CNG.56f38ef15f6205d33c4a9b392db46ad0.551">This was published in AFP on June 8, 2012</a></p>
<p>The call for demonstrations by the Indian arm of the group follows a
March 29 court order issued in the southern city of Chennai demanding 15
Indian Internet providers block access to file-sharing websites such as
Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>The order has resulted in access being denied to a host of websites
that carry pirated films and music among other legal content, including <a class="external-link" href="http://www.isohunt.com/">www.isohunt.com</a> and <a class="external-link" href="http://www.pastebin.com/">www.pastebin.com</a>.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the Anonymous forum fired an opening shot by attacking
the website of state-run telecom provider MTNL, pasting the logo of the
group -- the mask of 17th century revolutionary Guy Fawkes -- on <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mtnl.net.in">www.mtnl.net.in</a>.</p>
<p>In an open letter the same day, the group accused the government of
trying to create a "Great Indian Firewall" to establish control on the
web and issuing a "declaration of war from yourself... to us."</p>
<p>Internet users and supporters have been asked to join peaceful
rallies in cities including the capital New Delhi and the tech hub of
Bangalore, with detailed instructions issued online to participants.</p>
<p>Tech website <a class="external-link" href="http://www.pluggd.in/">www.pluggd.in</a>
reported the demonstrators have been asked to wear Guy Fawkes' masks,
download a recorded message to play to police, and are to chant "United
as one! Divided as zero! We are Anonymous! We are legion!"</p>
<p>Concerns about Internet freedom in India go beyond the court order in
Chennai, however, and stem from an update to India's Information
Technology Act that was given by the IT and communications ministry in
April last year.</p>
<p>The new rules regulating Internet companies -- providers, websites
and search engines -- instruct them that they must remove "disparaging"
or "blasphemous" content within 36 hours if they receive a complaint by
an "affected person".</p>
<p>Groups such as the Center for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based
research and advocacy group, have waged a year-long campaign for
amendments to the rules, which were quietly released in April.</p>
<p>Industry groups have also objected, saying they are unclear on the
changes which are in any case impossible to implement when it comes to
acting on individual complaints about specific content.</p>
<p>"A lot of education is required in this field," secretary of the
Internet Service Providers Association of India S.P. Jairath told AFP.</p>
<p>The government has also become embroiled in a row with social
networks after Telecoms Minister Kapil Sibal held a series of meetings
with IT giants Google, Yahoo! and Facebook last year to discuss the
pre-screening of content.</p>
<p>The minister was said to have shown Internet executives examples of
obscene images found online that risked offending Muslims or defamed
politicians, including his boss, the head of the ruling Congress party,
Sonia Gandhi.</p>
<p>Since these meetings, 19 Internet firms including Google, Yahoo! and
Facebook have been targeted in criminal and civil cases lodged in lower
courts, holding them responsible for content posted by users of their
platforms.</p>
<p>Anonymous is a secretive "hacker-activist" network and is thought to
be a loosely knit collective with no clearly defined leadership
structure.</p>
<p>It has claimed dozens of online attacks on sites ranging from the
Vatican to Los Angeles Police Canine Association, but is increasingly
the target of law enforcement agencies who have arrested dozens of
members.</p>
<hr />
<p>The above was published in the following places as well:</p>
<ol><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/anonymous-hackers-call-for-protests-across-india-today-against-internet-censorship-229238">NDTV</a>, June 9, 2012</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://post.jagran.com/anonymous-to-protest-internet-policing-1339243820">Jagran Post</a>, June 9, 2012</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-09/internet/32140515_1_internet-firms-websites-internet-companies">The Times of India</a>, June 9, 2012</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/06/09185541/8216Anonymous8217-activi.html">LiveMint</a>, June 9, 2012</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-06-09/news/32140719_1_government-websites-anonymous-facebook-page">Economic Times</a>, June 9, 2012<br /></li></ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/anonymous-hackers-to-protest-indian-internet-laws'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/anonymous-hackers-to-protest-indian-internet-laws</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-06-18T04:55:51ZNews ItemHackers Take Protest to Indian Streets and Cyberspace
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hackers-take-protest-to-indian-streets-and-cyberspace
<b>First there was self-styled Gandhian activist Anna Hazare who took to the streets to protest corruption. Now a group agitating against censorship on the Internet has arrived in India.</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/06/08/hackers-take-protest-to-indian-streets-and-cyberspace/">This article by Shreya Shah was published in the Wall Street Journal on June 8, 2012 </a>Pranesh Prakash is quoted in this article.</p>
<p>Only this time, the location is cyberspace and their modus operandi hacking.</p>
<p>In the last few months, Anonymous –a group of hackers, or hacktivists as they like to call themselves –has gone after Web sites of political parties, government sites and Internet service providers, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/article3496968.ece">the latest being MTNL</a>, to protest censorship on the Internet.</p>
<p>The group says they are opposing laws including the 2008 Information Technology (Amendment) Act and the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules of 2011, which they say unfairly restrict Internet freedom.</p>
<p>On Saturday, the hackers will take their protest to the streets, with an Occupy Wall Street-style march called ”Operation Occupy India” planned in 17 cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Nagpur in Maharashtra and Kundapur in Karnataka. The group has requested all protestors to wear Guy Fawkes masks, the symbol of Anonymous.</p>
<p>“This time the common man wants to help us,” an “anon,” which is what members of the group call themselves, told India Real Time.</p>
<p>Anonymous, which has a global presence, catapulted to fame with its <a class="external-link" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704457604576011873881591338.html">attacks on Visa, Mastercard and Paypal</a>.</p>
<p>This is how the group attacks Web sites: It overwhelms them with thousands of requests from different computer systems simultaneously. The Web site is unable to handle the load and crashes.</p>
<p>The group intensified its attacks after Internet Service Providers like Reliance, MTNL and Airtel temporarily <a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/05/18/vimeo-ban-more-web-censorship/">blocked file sharing sites like Vimeo</a>, Dailymotion, Patebin and Pirate bay, citing a Court order.</p>
<p>But many question the method used by Anonymous.</p>
<p>“I don’t believe in defacing or hacking government Web sites to prove a point,” says Ankit Fadia, a cyber security expert. “You can’t hold the government ransom,” he adds.</p>
<p>In an <a class="external-link" href="http://opindia.posterous.com/open-letter-from-anonymous-to-government-of-i">open letter</a> to the government, Anonymous India defended its actions. It wrote that traditional ways of protesting are losing meaning and this is a new method to pressure the politicians.</p>
<p>Members of the group say that like a regular protest on the street, they too block the infrastructure of their opponents. Except in this case, the infrastructure is located in cyberspace.</p>
<p>This is a “geek method of attacking,” said the anon who spoke to India Real Time. The group does not plan to attacks sites like that of the Indian railways, for instance, which is used by the masses, he explained.</p>
<p>But not everyone is convinced.</p>
<p>The group attacked the Web site of India’s Supreme Court even when it says it does not attack Web sites used by the common man, says Pranesh Prakash, Program Director of the Center for Internet and Society.</p>
<p>The IT Act is another reason Anonymous is protesting. The Act gives the government the power to remove content it finds offensive. The government can also restrict public access to a Web site.</p>
<p>Anonymous is also protesting the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR314E_10511%281%29.pdf">Intermediary Guidelines of 2011</a>. According to this Act, a site that hosts offensive content will have to remove it within 36 hours of a complaint against it.</p>
<p>As a result, Web sites like Google and Facebook are <a class="external-link" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304746604577381791461076660.html%20%20%E2%80%9CThis%20government%20does%20not%20stand%20for%20censorship;%20this%20government%20does%20not%20stand%20for%20infringement%20of%20fr">facing criminal cases</a> for hosting objectionable content on their site.</p>
<p>“This government does not stand for censorship; this government does not stand for infringement of free speech. Indeed, this government does not stand for regulation of free speech,” Kapil Sibal, the Communications and Information Technology Minister told the Rajya Sabha, or the upper house of the Indian Parliament, last month.</p>
<p>Pranesh Prakash, of the Center for Internet and Society told India Real Time that he does not believe that Anonymous will influence policy makers. He says that the main aim of a protest is to get media attention, and in turn get the attention of the people.</p>
<p>But he agrees that India’s cyber laws are “hopelessly flawed” and create a framework by which not only the government but <a class="external-link" href="http://kafila.org/2012/01/11/invisible-censorship-how-the-government-censors-without-being-seen-pranesh-prakash/">everyone can censor</a>.</p>
<p>He adds, “The laws are a greater threat than Anonymous.”</p>
<p>Photo Source: Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hackers-take-protest-to-indian-streets-and-cyberspace'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hackers-take-protest-to-indian-streets-and-cyberspace</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-06-18T04:02:21ZNews ItemThe War for India's Internet
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/war-of-india-internet
<b>Why is the world's biggest democracy cracking down on Facebook and Google? Rebecca Mackinnon's article was published in Foreign Policy on June 6, 2012. </b>
<p>"65 years since your independence," a new battle for freedom is under way in India -- according to a <a class="external-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0VN7QSg2oE">YouTube video</a> uploaded by an Indian member of Anonymous, the global "hacktivist" movement. With popular websites like <a class="external-link" href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo.com</a> blocked across India by court order, the video calls for action: "Fight for your rights. Fight for India." Over the past several weeks, the group has launched <a class="external-link" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18114984">distributed denial-of-service attacks</a> against websites belonging to <a class="external-link" href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/257032/indian_isps_targeted_in_anonymous_censorship_protest.html">Internet service providers</a>, government departments, India's Supreme Court, and two political parties.</p>
<p>Street protests <a class="external-link" href="https://opindia.posterous.com/anonymous-to-stage-street-protest-on-9th-june">are being planned </a>for this coming Saturday, June 9, in as many as 18 cities <a class="external-link" href="https://opindia.posterous.com/need-of-opindia">to protest laws and other government actions</a> that a growing number of Indian Internet users believe have violated their right to free expression and privacy online. A lively national Internet freedom movement has grown rapidly across India since the beginning of this year. The most colorful highlight so far was a seven-day Gandhian hunger strike, otherwise known as a "<a class="external-link" href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/05/06/india-freedom-fast-to-save-your-voice/">freedom fast</a>," held in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3390327.ece">early May</a> on a New Delhi sidewalk by political cartoonist Aseem Trivedi and activist-journalist Alok Dixit. Trivedi's website was <a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/01/04/cartoonist-faces-ban-on-right-to-poke-fun/">shut down this year</a> in response to a police complaint by a Mumbai-based advocate who alleged that some of Trivedi's works "ridicule the Indian Parliament, the national emblem, and the national flag."</p>
<p>Escalating political and legal battles over Internet regulation in India are the latest front in a global struggle for online freedom -- not only in countries like China and Iran where the Internet is heavily censored and monitored by autocratic regimes, but also in democracies where the political motivations for control are much more complicated. Democratically elected governments all over the world are failing to find the right balance between demands from constituents to fight crime, control hate speech, keep children safe, and protect intellectual property, and their duty to ensure and respect all citizens' rights to free expression and privacy. Popular online movements -- many of them globally interconnected -- are arising in response to these failures.</p>
<p>Only about 10 percent of India's population uses the web, making it unlikely that Internet freedom will be a decisive ballot-box issue anytime soon. Yet activists are determined to punish New Delhi's "<a class="external-link" href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/internet-it-ministry-kapil-sibal-facebook-youtube-google-twitter/1/189230.html">humorless babus</a>," as one columnist recently called India's censorious politicians and bureaucrats, in the country's media. Grassroots organizers are bringing a new generation of white-collar protesters to the streets to defend the right to use a technology that remains alien to the majority of India's people. </p>
<p>The trouble started with the 2008 passage of the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/downloads/itact2000/it_amendment_act2008.pdf">Information Technology (Amendment) Act</a>, whose <a class="external-link" href="http://chmag.in/article/jan2012/powers-government-under-information-technology-act-2000">Section 69</a> empowers the government to direct any Internet service to block, intercept, monitor, or decrypt any information through any computer resource. Company officials who fail to comply with government requests can face fines and up to seven years in jail. Then, in April 2011, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology issued new rules under which Internet companies are expected to remove within 36 hours any content that regulators designate as "grossly harmful," "harassing," or "ethnically objectionable" -- designations that are open to a wide variety of interpretations and that free speech advocates argue have opened the door to abuse. It is thanks to these rules that the website of the hunger-striking cartoonist, Trivedi, was taken offline. Also thanks to the 2011 rules, Facebook and Google<a class="external-link" href="http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-google-india-censorship-trial-postponed-again-2012-05"> are facing trial</a> for having failed to remove objectionable content. If found guilty, the companies could face fines, and executives could be sentenced to jail time.</p>
<p>Saturday's protesters are calling for annulment of the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.internetdemocracy.in/2012/04/20/why-the-it-rules-should-be-annulled/">2011 rules</a> and the repeal of part of the 2008 act. They are also calling for Internet service companies to reverse the wholesale blocking of <a class="external-link" href="http://telecomtalk.info/freedom-internet-stake-300-sites-blocked-india/94309/">hundreds of websites</a>, including the file-sharing services<a class="external-link" href="http://www.isohunt.com/"> isoHunt</a> and <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thepiratebay.se/">The Pirate Bay</a>, as well as the video-sharing site <a class="external-link" href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a> and <a class="external-link" href="http://www.pastebin.com/">Pastebin</a>, which is primarily used for the sharing of text and links. Internet service providers were <a class="external-link" href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-18/chennai/31764563_1_isps-internet-service-providers-websites">responding to a court order</a> from the Madras High Court demanding the blockage, which is aimed at preventing the online distribution of pirated versions of one particular film. The Internet companies, fearing that they would not be able to catch every individual instance on every possible site they host, instead chose to block entire services along with all of their content -- which had nothing to do with the film in question. </p>
<p>Such "John Doe" orders, named because they are directed against unknown potential offenders in the present and future, are characterized "by their overly broad and sweeping nature," <a class="external-link" href="http://m.indianexpress.com/news/%22copyright-madness%22/952088/">argue lawyer Lawrence Liang and researcher Achal Prabhala</a>, which extends "to a range of non-infringing activities as well, thus catching a whole range of legal acts in their net." More broadly, as Delhi-based journalist Shivam Vij wrote<a class="external-link" href="http://www.rediff.com/news/column/indias-skewed-internet-censorship-debate/20120430.htm"> in a recent essay</a>: "The current mechanisms of internet censorship in India -- blocking, direct removal requests to websites, intermediary rules -- are draconian and unconstitutional. They need to be replaced with a new set of rules that are fair, transparent and accessible for public scrutiny. They should not be amenable to misuse by the powers-that-be for their own private interests." </p>
<p>Not only are the rules abused, but researchers find that they are causing extralegal censorship by companies that overcompensate in order to err on the side of caution. Last year, the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/chilling-effects-on-free-expression-on-internet" class="external-link">performed an experiment</a> in which it sent "legally flawed" takedown demands to seven companies that provide a range of online services, including search, online shopping, and news with user-generated comments. The legal flaws in the notices were such that the companies could have rejected them without being in breach of the law. Yet "of the 7 intermediaries to which takedown notices were sent, 6 intermediaries over-complied with the notices, despite the apparent flaws in them," reads the Centre for Internet and Society <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/chilling-effects-on-free-expression-on-internet" class="external-link">report</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.internetdemocracy.in/2012/04/20/why-the-it-rules-should-be-annulled/">growing public opposition</a>, a motion to annul the 2011 rules was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.legallyindia.com/Social-lawyers/motion-to-kill-it-rules-defeated">defeated by voice vote</a> in the upper house of Parliament last month. Yet the criticism was sufficiently sharp that Communications Minister Kapil Sibal announced that he will hold consultations with all members of Parliament, representatives of industry, and other "stakeholders" to discuss the law's problems and how it might be revised. Many of the law's critics, however, are skeptical that this will eliminate the law's deep flaws and loopholes for abuse, especially given the government's failure to listen so far. Comments on the 2011 rules submitted last year by the Centre for Internet and Society were not even acknowledged as having been received by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. "Sibal uses the excuse of national security and hate speech," says the center's director, Sunil Abraham, "but that is not what is happening." </p>
<p>Abraham worries that what is really happening is a government effort at Internet "behavior modification" through a process akin to an experiment involving caged monkeys, bananas, and ice water. Put four monkeys in a cage and hang a bunch of bananas on the ceiling. Every time one of them climbs up to reach the bananas, you drench all of them with ice water. Soon enough, the monkeys will start policing themselves -- attacking anybody who tries to reach the bananas, making it unnecessary for their masters to deploy the ice water. "This is why the government is being so aggressive so early on, with only 10 percent of India's population online," says Abraham. "If you start the drenching early on, by the time you get to 50 percent [Internet penetration], every one will be well-behaved monkeys." Companies will act as private Internet police for fear of legal punishment before the government is called upon to step in and enforce the law. If it works, Indian politicians could have fewer reasons to worry about online critiques or mockery, because companies fearing prosecution will proactively delete speech that could potentially be designated "harassing" or "grossly harmful."</p>
<p>India is not China or Iran, however. Its politicians may be corrupt, and most of its voters may not understand why Internet freedom matters because they've never used the Internet. But it still has an independent press and boisterous civil society that are not going to give up their critiques and protests anytime soon. India also has a strong, independent judiciary, with a record of ruling against censorship and surveillance measures when a strong case can be made that they conflict with constitutional protections of individual rights. "On free speech I have high faith in the Indian judiciary," says Abraham. "There is a good chance to launch a constitutional challenge."</p>
<p>If Google and Facebook lose at their <a class="external-link" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304537904577277263704300998.html">impending trial </a>-- now scheduled for July -- they will most certainly appeal, which activists hope could provide just such an opportunity to prevent the sort of "behavior modification" process that Abraham warns against. Now India's burgeoning Internet freedom movement needs its own reverse "behavior modification" strategy -- imposing consistent and regular doses of political and legal ice water upon India's bureaucrats, politicians, and companies whenever they do things that threaten to corrode the rights of India's Internet users. Saturday's protest is just the beginning.</p>
<p>Sunil Abraham is quoted in this article. Read the original <a class="external-link" href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/06/the_war_for_india_s_internet?page=0,0">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/war-of-india-internet'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/war-of-india-internet</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-06-14T09:12:34ZNews ItemScared by a spoof? You’ve got to be kidding me!
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/scared-by-a-spoof
<b>Whether it is Mamata Banerjee's recent crackdown on a comic strip or the new legal guidelines that allow touchy readers to have objectionable content taken down, what you say online is under scrutiny. What, then, will happen to news satire websites?</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-03/people/32005348_1_spoof-comic-strip-website/2">The article by Dhamini Ratnam was published in the Times of India on June 3, 2012</a></p>
<p>"Meri site www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.com kabse band ho chuki hai (...) Humara sabse bada hathiyar humse chheena ja raha hai (...) Aaj chup rahe toh phir bolne ke liye zubaan bhi nahin bachegi." (My site <a class="external-link" href="http://www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.com">www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.com</a> has been shut down (...) Our biggest weapon is being taken away from us (...) If we remain silent, we won't be left with anything to articulate with").</p>
<p>That's the first thing you read on Kanpur-based blogger Aseem Trivedi's new site, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.blogspot.in">www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.blogspot.in</a>, on which he transferred all his satirical cartoons earlier this year, after he found that his website had been arbitrarily blocked based on a complaint lodged with the Mumbai Crime Branch last December.</p>
<p>In May, Trivedi went on a hunger strike. His point was simple. The police had no right to have his website taken down, under the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008, or even under the new Information Technology (intermediary guidelines) Rules, 2011. These rules came into effect last April, and give 36 hours to the intermediary (read Internet Service Provider) to take down content deemed 'objectionable'.</p>
<p>At the face of it, this may seem like a handing over of power to Internet users. But what does this hold out for news satire websites that routinely critique public figures, spoof politics and play an important role in raising public awareness through humour?</p>
<p>For one, in a surprising move, the editors are giving up being anonymous. Says Rahul Roushan, editor, Faking News, "I began this site under the pseudonym Pagal Patrakar in 2008. By the end of 2009, I didn't want to remain anonymous anymore."</p>
<p>Roushan, who is based in Gurgaon, felt readers weren't taking him seriously. "Unless there's a face to such sites, people will think you're spreading lies," says the 33-year-old former television news anchor. Yet, coming out wasn't a cakewalk. "A post I wrote about on the anti-people policy of Mr Thackeray received a comment that I am a Bihari, and therefore against Marathi manoos. Had he not known my name, the reader would never have written such a comment," says Roushan.</p>
<p>Yet, Roushan would rather have his readers - his blog gets 10 lakh page views a month - trust his judgement.</p>
<p>However, recent events, including Pashimbanga Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's crackdown on a comic strip, and Union human resource development, communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal's suggestion to Internet giants to "regulate themselves" has left Roushan and other news satire website editors wary.The new IT guidelines, fears Roushan, will create an army of self-righteous people with "a lot of hurt sentiments".</p>
<p>"I'm scared of sentiments," he says, wryly.</p>
<p>T S Sudhir, editor of Tenali Rama Reports, a news spoof site that was started in September 2011, feels the trick to safeguard against such "sentiments" is to maintain a rigorous editorial policy. "No obscene, lewd or toilet humour," says the Hyderabadbased former journalist.</p>
<p>The recent fracas over Mamata's 'Maoist' concerns, for instance, elicited a light-hearted piece that said all dosa-eaters are Maoists, because 'mao' in Tamil means 'batter'. "India has a long-standing political tradition of satire, and readers are used to political cartoons with biting humour."</p>
<p>Mangalore-based political cartoonist Satish Acharya, however, has faced the brunt for his biting humour. In September 2011, a Mumbai Crime Branch officer asked him to take down a cartoon depicting <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Sharad-Pawar">Sharad Pawar</a> in a red gown that Acharya had posted on his blog, after it was published in a Mumbaibased tabloid. "In political cartoons, what is the yardstick to measure what is objectionable," asks Acharya. "Can a policeman decide whether a political cartoon is objectionable and have it taken down?"</p>
<p>Programme manager at The Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, Pranesh Prakash has a one word reply: No. Together with his teammates, Prakash is working on a set of guidelines that counters the Intermediary Rules and offers checks and balances without trampling on fundamental rights. For instance, says Prakash, after a complaint is made, the content owner - say the website editor, or cartoonist - should be allowed to reply. If the problem persists, the complainant can go to court.</p>
<p>If cartoons are an effective vehicle of critique online, so are videos. The UnReal Times, run by New Delhi-based IIM graduates C S Krishna and Karthik Laxman, shot to online fame last year after they released a video depicting the Prime Minister as Singham, the heroic character played by Ajay Devgn in a film.</p>
<p>"The best sort of satire," says Krishna, "is when you can't prove in the court of law that the piece is insulting." Krishna and Laxman, who do policy research work for BJP MP Uday Singh, insist that they are not card-holders for the party, and have taken pot-shots at the BJP, too. "Since political satire focuses on mocking the establishment, the UPA government is the subject of most our (satirical) pieces on politics," says Krishna. Tanay Sukumar, editor of News That Matters Not, feels that the content should be directed at a problematic policy, not person. Engineering students Sukumar and Sugandha, who founded the site in 2009, feel that a satirist needs to distinguish between what is necessary and what isn't. "Portraying a political figure using sexual innuendo might be funny for several readers, but would be "unnecessary" in most cases. Our job is to to critique governance." In the case of a crackdown, however, they are clear about what they'd do: they'll take down the 'offending' piece, and then write about having done so. "We will not offend them; we will wear them out," they say.</p>
<p>Want to start a news satire website? here's how:</p>
<p>Have a disclaimer page. Apologise in advance for "hurt sentiments", offer readers a chance to get in <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Touch">touch</a> with you directly for redressal, explain why you're using satire as a tool to critique. If your ISP is asked to remove content, the current IT guidelines are such that they would need to obey. However, since the law doesn't require ISPs to keep track of content that has been removed, make noise about it. There'll be enough people online who will fight for your freedom of expression. Study satire - it's an effective tool - but learn to distinguish it from slander and falsehood. Keep the post grounded in a real event or phenomenon. Critique the agenda, not the person. Consult an IT lawyer if you are in doubt about a piece. It's always good to know your legal argument beforehand.</p>
<p>Pranesh Prakash is quoted in this article.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/scared-by-a-spoof'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/scared-by-a-spoof</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-06-05T05:24:09ZNews ItemDo IT Rules 2011 indirectly leads to Censorship of Internet
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/do-it-rules-indirectly-lead-to-censorship-of-internet
<b>Pranesh Prakash along with Dr. Arvind Gupta, National Convener, BJP IT Cell and Ms.
Mishi Choudhary, Executive Director, SFLC participated in a panel discussion on censorship of the Internet on May 8, 2012.
</b>
<p>The discussion was broadcast on Yuva iTV. See the video below:</p>
<h2>Video</h2>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KRIJRhpW-Bc" frameborder="0" height="315" width="320"></iframe></p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRIJRhpW-Bc">Click for the video on YouTube</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/do-it-rules-indirectly-lead-to-censorship-of-internet'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/do-it-rules-indirectly-lead-to-censorship-of-internet</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaIT ActInternet GovernanceVideoIntermediary LiabilityCensorship2012-05-31T09:00:41ZNews Item