India Descends Into Extreme Internet Censorship
from the censorship-in-effect dept
A year and a half ago, we noted some new laws and plans for laws in India that would likely lead to widespread censorship of the internet in that country, and a commenter on that post just alerted us to the news that some of these ridiculous new laws have gone into effect. They're incredibly vague, and get the liability question backwards, demanding that ISPs proactively police and remove content that is "objectionable," "disparaging," "harassing," "blasphemous" and "hateful." Talk about vague. Suddenly, service providers have incentive to over aggressively block all sorts of stuff, just to avoid liability. The law also requires sites to remove content within 36 hours if law enforcement says it's objectionable -- without even notifying whoever put that content up. Think how easy this is to abuse by anyone in government who just doesn't like some type of content. Such a law is clearly a censorship law.Bizarrely, the Indian government insists that there's nothing wrong with these laws, and that they're "comparable to any international cyber laws." Here's the thing: the spokesperson is right if you include copyright laws. Copyright laws, such as the DMCA, are really the only equivalent international laws (if you're not talking about some place like China, which the Indian government insists it's not) that allow for such a takedown upon notice. So, realistically, it appears that India is justifying its broad censorship laws with US copyright laws. Of course, we've been saying for a while that more countries would do this, but copyright maximalists continue to insist that's crazy.
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Filed Under: censorship, free speech, india, internet
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I would shut my ISP down
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Re: I would shut my ISP down
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Re: I would shut my ISP down
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Thanks for clearing that up for us.
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Are you really that ethnocentrically stupid?
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Re: Re: I guess he is
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Re: Re: Re: I guess he is
Darry....I think I agree with you?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess he is
maybe the world is coming to an end....
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess he is
...in 5 months...THE RAPTURE PART 2!!!!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess he is
See? We CAN all just get along, Rodney!
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LOL...
See?
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That isn't an error, it's as intended....
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess he is "See what", see?
what? your "See?", of course.
I was just trying to refer you to your own interesting syntax.
You see, "see what?" is valid syntax, but "see?" is not, IMHO.
In other words, what I wanted you to see, is your use of a ? after your see (ie, see?) and was trying to enquire what that ment?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess he is "See what", see?
Ah, I get what you're saying now. Perhaps there's a country vernacular barrier here. "See?" in the States is used in place of "Do you see what I mean?" or something similar.
Vernacular, probably, rather than a syntax error.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess he is "See what", see?
Australian accent, also has the rising itonation (the end of the word is spoken with a higher pitch than the start of the word or sentence) to denote a question or enquiry.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess he is "See what", see?
That's "facetious", see?
Australian accent, also has the rising itonation (the end of the word is spoken with a higher pitch than the start of the word or sentence) to denote a question or enquiry.
The US has that too. Now what is all this reasonableness and making sense from you? Is this going to be habitual now?
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Thanks for pointing that out.
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Thanks for clearing that up for us.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN6UAzYY8qg
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When we talk about a "dumb foreign country", we usually refer to the USA. Present company excluded, except Darryl.
It appears India is trying to catch up.
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wow
One of the great things about the movie's free distribution model is it prevented censorship. But if your regime is repressive enough....
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Re: wow
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I'd call that a win-win in any book.
P.S. Thanks Nina for the link to the petition. Many of the comments over there really show the intolerance of some to any views but their own, while a few others "get the message" about people having different points of view on the same subject being normal (or at least it should be).
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Re: wow
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How can they do such a thing?
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In the beginning...
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Re: In the beginning...
The outcome of the new internet laws in India: Along with "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil", you can add "Browse no evil".
"In the beginning, there was nothing. Then the Indian Government said, "Let there be light". And there was still nothing but you could see it."
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Re: In the beginning...
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Re: Re: In the beginning...
I thought it might be prudent at this juncture to point out that it was George Herbert Walker Bush (the older one) who coined that phrase.
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Mind you, it very may well cause issues in terms of getting much needed info to their people so I'm not saying it would be the BEST thing for them to do.
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Non-protected free speech !!!
It's funny, but Mike posts a list of things that are going to be banned.
But copyright was not one of them. Mike just added that for effect.
Tell us Mike what difference is there between this law, and non-protected free speech laws that you have in the US ?
Like hate speech, or the incitement of crime ?
Oh wait, its ok for the US to have such laws that you live by, and go crying too at every opportunity, but it's not ok for any other country to do it ?
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Re: Non-protected free speech !!!
The US also doesn't have any laws against "objectionable," "disparaging," or "blasphemous" speech (as much as they want to); and hate speech and harassment is vary limited.
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Re: Re: Non-protected free speech !!!
An international law implies the SAME exact law for each nation, that does not exist with copyright, nor does it exist with copyright.
(or most other things).
But to try to tie copyright to hate speech and typical laws regarding incitefull and hate type speech and acts is not right.
Especially considering the US thinks it leads the field in this area.
Having free speech, but still have non-protected speech.
So its ok for the US to do that but not some other country ?
Double standards ?
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Re: Re: Re: Non-protected free speech !!!
-Dark Helmet
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Masnick, this is why you are a laughingstock. That you pervert a foreign law regarding censorship. The spokesman didn't say jack shit about copyright law, you did.
Every time you make one of these absurd conclusions that US copyright law is the root cause of a foreign governments censorship of of content that is "objectionable", "disparaging," "harassing," "blasphemous" or "hateful" you look like an even bigger buffoon.... if that's possible.
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Of course he didn't say anything about copyright law. I thought that was evident from what I wrote up. But the only laws that I'm aware of that have similar liability issues are copyright laws, which is why it was relevant to bring up copyright law.
Every time you make one of these absurd conclusions that US copyright law is the root cause of a foreign governments censorship of of content that is "objectionable", "disparaging," "harassing," "blasphemous" or "hateful" you look like an even bigger buffoon.... if that's possible.
I find it odd that you need to insult everyone who disagrees with you. It's as if you're so unsure of your own arguments that you feel like you need to convince yourself. If you want to have a discussion, I'm happy to discuss. If you want to insist to insult me, I don't see that as particular productive. It also seems to reflect a lot more poorly on you.
Anyway, nowhere did I say that US copyright law was the "root cause" of this, but I did point out that it appears Indian politicians may be using that aspect of copyright laws to justify this overreach into free speech.
You can disagree, but it would help if you actually provided a counterpoint, that ran further than calling me names and blatantly misrepresenting my position.
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Pot, meet kettle.
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Re: Indian Govt do not actively monitor internet content.
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Re: Re: Indian Govt do not actively monitor internet content.
They're far too clueless (they wanted to ban a few blogs, and ended up blocking all of Blogspot and Wordpress in the country) - this makes them all the more dangerous, but that's a different discussion. The original point stands - they don't actively monitor Internet content.
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"objectionable," "disparaging," "harassing," "blasphemous" and "hateful."
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...Well, alright, with PROTECT IP looming on the horizon, ICE will shut down every site worldwide that doesn't comply, so I guess that makes US law de facto international law. (Except for the Pirate Bay, who regularly laugh off DMCA requests.)
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Sounds Typical For India
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Re: Sounds Typical For India
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It's not racism...
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Re: It's not racism...
Just like the US is !!
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Re: Re: Sounds Typical For India
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Immediately restore said post or I will be further offended and take offensive action by lobbying (bribing) and getting a law passed (bought with corporate slush/hush fund money) to force you to put it back up under penalty (of whatever my money did buy).
Or would you believe, just scare you with a really nastygram type legal threat from a no-name lawyer with no force under the law, but sounding tough all the same?
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India's Internet censorship
The title of this post is somewhat misleading (possibly out of ignorance of the situation so far) - India's not 'descending' into extreme Internet censhorship. It's just that they're codifying this shit into law now, which brings it to the attention of Techdirt and the like.
Right from the beginning, the Indian govt. would get ISPs to 'ban' certain pages and websites, and the craven ISPs would freely comply, no pressure needed. And back then, because the Internet penetration was even lower than it is now, there would be nobody in the forest to hear the tree fall.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India - and that's only after the media started covering stuff like this, circa 1999.
For instance, in '96/'97 I was completely unable to access any Pakistani newspapers' websites - they were completely blacked out. The Indian government is not above blocking absolutely anything they see fit - fortunately the Indian media are such noisy hellhounds that the govt can't really suppress dissenting opinions. This does not exonerate the media though - they're perfectly happy to indulge in 'patriotic' chest-thumping when propaganda and hate-speech sites are blocked.
The whole situation disgusts me - but there's very little that can be done. Internet penetration in India is ridiculously low, and a vast majority of the voting public are abysmally poor and uneducated, which means they're not schooled in critical thinking. And so they happily gobble up the propaganda BS if it is mentioned as being done 'for the good of society' or to 'defend Indian cultural values'.
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Re: India's Internet censorship
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Re: Re: India's Internet censorship
They do try to make people get only ONE or TWO points of view (analogous is Americans only getting the liberal and conservative point of view on most subjects).
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Re: Re: India's Internet censorship
Having said that, it's more the 'middle class' and higher sections of society that's seeing any improvement in their lot. The poor are still struggling with survival. But my hope and belief is that people have realised the value in education, and each generation improves on the previous one by a little bit in that regard. Baby steps.
But like I said, it's slow by contemporary standards, and the ridiculously endemic corruption will keep it at this glacial pace for another 10 years at least.
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Re: India's Internet censorship
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Ban them all
Will these be banned now?
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No US law against hate speech
copyright is not an international law, and most countries including USA have national laws against hate speech.
Wrong, the First Amendment as interpreted by the courts clearly protects what would be considered unlawful hate speech in most other nations.
See, Collin v. Smith holding that the nazis had aconstitutional right to demonstrate in Skokie Illinois.
And recently the Supreme Court implicitly reaffirmed the Skokie case by upholding the Westboro Baptist Church's right to funeral protest.
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Re: No US law against hate speech
I believe the problem comes in that obscenity standards change from community to community. Should they sit down and say that "X is an obscenity", I believe we'll begin to see censorship creep up, making some of these forms of speech (such as WBC and even American Nazism) that much more dangerous.
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Re: No US law against hate speech
I said the US constitution is not an international law, it is not.
You stated that yourself, that is assuming Illinois is in the US.
But if the nazis wanted to protest here in Australia, do you think they would come under the protection of the US Constitution ?
The US is one of many countries that have free speech laws, freedom of press, and laws against 'hate' speech.
Just like the US is one of many countries that have copyright laws, that have laws against other crimes like murder, rape and so on.
SIMILAR LAWS, not the SAME LAW..
Please, consider "international" means (NOT JUST THE US).
Show is a case where someone used their constitutional right to protect in Bulgaria ?
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DEMOCRATIC TRADITION
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DEMOCRATIC TRADITION
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SRY bout reasonableness
Sorry, (for making 'some' sense).
I think the difference with the rising pitch in Aus is that it apples equally to complete statement or sentence, making a statement a question.
(we also pronounce 'sugar' differently).
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Re: SRY bout reasonableness
I know - does it make it confusing ever? I was playing on xbox with an Australian once (well at least once) and definitely noticed that. It can be a nice accent to listen to. Especially from someone like Jackie McKenzie. :-)
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India Censorship
In India, it's perfectly ok to offend religious sensibilities, just not BABU CONTROL FREAK sensibilities. The good babus don't like dissent. They're supposed to commit whatever crimes they feel like, steal public funds, steal private property, abuse the locals and violate the trust of the taxpayers and NOBODY is supposed to say SQUAT.
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