Internet censorship in India

Internet censorship in India

Internet censorship in India, Internet censorship exists in varying degrees all over the world. In some countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, and a considerable number of Western European countries, it’s negligible and the government encourages the internet industry to self-regulate and also asks users themselves to use “filtering/blocking technologies’ to block objectionable content. In other words, the internet is not really policed by the government. But some countries like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, North Korea, China and Vietnam have a high degree of internet control by the government.


India falls somewhere inbetween
India isn’t immune to internet censorship. Certain pornographic sites have been blocked in the past and this continues to happen at regular intervals. Attempts have also been made to block sites which slander politicians, or sites run by groups which incite religious hatred, or those which publish politically sensitive material. Often these attempts are not successful. During the Kargil war the site of the Pakistani newspaper (Dawn) was blocked by vsnl (government owned internet gateway which was a monopoly at the time) but Rediff (a news site) published detailed instructions as to how one could bypass the filter and view the site!! Right now in India there are no established rules which a website needs to follow…the official banning of sites takes place in a very ad hoc manner and is often temporary. More often it is schools, universities and employers who impose restrictions on blogging or otherwise revealing information relating to their organisation. Overall though internet censorship in India is nominal.

Read more: nitawriter