India has blocked Thirty two websites for security reasons.arising out of ISIS terror threat.
Websites Blocked in India for security reasons
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Indian government has asked internet service providers and mobile operators to block access to 32 sites in the name of its censorship laws
GitHub, Archive.org, Imgur, Vimeo, Daily Motion and Pastebin are some of the more familiar names included on the list, a key excerpt of which was made public by Pranesh Pakesh, a director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore…
India Blocks websites Tweet. Click to enlarge, see the List
. The head of the Bharatiya Janata political party has claimed that the sites were listed because they content from ISIS.
The websites that have been blocked were based on an advisory by Anti Terrorism Squad, and were carrying Anti India content from ISIS. 1/2
Gupta added that those sites which cooperate and remove the suspected ISIS content will be unblocked. Nonetheless, looking in from the outside, it certainly seems like the issue could have been handled in a clearer way that didn’t involved issuing blanket censorship blocks.
Already it seems that some service providers have taken action and cut access to a number of the websites.
Times Of India reports that its correspondents were not able to access Pastebin, DailyMotion or GitHub using Vodafone’s 3G service, although they were able to get on the three sites via rival operator Airtel’s service.
India’s government has long tried to censor entertainment sites which contain media that it deems ‘unsuitable’ for consumption in the country — just ask Google, which was tried over censorship requests — so it is not surprising to see the likes of Daily Motion and Vimeo on its hit list. The addition of GitHub, which has over 8 million registered users worldwide, however, is one of the more head-scratching decisions — it may be that the contents of a single page from the site which triggered a full blockage request, but clearly that’s a nonsensical decision.
Twitter , in its ofiicial Blog ,has atted that it will be blocking Blogs that are held offensive by a country.
Its contention is’ Freedom is non-specific’ and varies from one country to another!?
It explains as a sop, which it can not believe in, that it will make content available and its stand on www. chilling effects.org.
However ,in essence,this declaration of blocking content is not very different from the stand of Google and Facebook who state that they will block if the content is ordered to be removed by the ‘courts’ while Twitter says it will do so if required by ‘Law’.
The fine distinction is that Twitter can block contents quoting specific Law, while Google and Facebook will do so on specific orders from a court.
In India there are no specific Laws on this issue as in Germany where it is illegal to propagate ‘neo-Nazism‘
So Twitter can say that its Tweets are not published because there is no specific law, if they choose.
It is suspected that Twitter is eyeing the Chinese market where the Internet Censorship is strong where the Chinese block a site if they want to with no recourse to legal remedy.
At the same time,Twitter can say it is a model Corporation following law and at the same time post the informtion in Chiling effects for rest of the world and declare it is a defender of Freedo of Expression.
So you are an idealist crusading for freedom of Expression and at the same time make money by sacrificing the principle..
What a double speak?
““The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact … almost every country in the world agrees that freedom of expression is a human right. Many countries also agree that freedom of expression carries with it responsibilities and has limits.”
As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.
Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.
We haven’t yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld. As part of that transparency, we’ve expanded our partnership with Chilling Effects to share this new page,http://chillingeffects.org/twitter, which makes it easier to find notices related to Twitter.
One of our core values as a company is to defend and respect each user’s voice. We try to keep content up wherever and whenever we can, and we will be transparent with users when we can’t. The Tweets must continue to flow.
Update – Jan 27, 2:20pm.
Since yesterday’s post, we’ve gotten a number of questions that we’d like to broadly address with this update.
In short, we believe the new, more granular approach to withheld content is a good thing for freedom of expression, transparency, accountability— and for our users. Besides allowing us to keep Tweets available in more places, it also allows users to see whether we are living up to our freedom of expression ideal.
Q: Do you filter out certain Tweets before they appear on Twitter?
A: No. Our users now send a billion Tweets every four days—filtering is neither desirable nor realistic. With this new feature, we are going to be reactive only: that is, we will withhold specific content only when required to do so in response to what we believe to be a valid and applicable legal request.
As we do today, we will evaluate each request before taking any action. Any content we do withhold in response to such a request is clearly identified to users in that country as being withheld. And we are now able to make that content available to users in the rest of the world.
Q: What will people see if content is withheld?
A: If people are located in a country where a Tweet or account has been withheld and they try to view it, they will see a alert box that says “Tweet withheld” or “@Usernamewithheld” in place of the affected Tweet or account.
Q: Why did you take this approach, and why now?
A: There’s no magic to the timing of this feature. We’ve been working to reduce the scope of withholding, while increasing transparency, for a while. We have users all over the world and wanted to find a way to deal with requests in the least restrictive way.
Do you know your online rights? Have you received a letter asking you to remove information from a Web site or to stop engaging in an activity? Are you concerned about liability for information that someone else posted to your online forum? If so, this site is for you.
Chilling Effects aims to help you understand the protections that the First Amendment and intellectual property laws give to your online activities. We are excited about the new opportunities the Internet offers individuals to express their views, parody politicians, celebrate their favorite movie stars, or criticize businesses. But we’ve noticed that not everyone feels the same way. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some individuals and corporations are using intellectual property and other laws to silence other online users. Chilling Effects encourages respect for intellectual property law, while frowning on its misuse to “chill” legitimate activity.
In addition, we want your help. We are gathering a searchable database of Cease and Desist notices sent to Internet users like you. We invite you toinput Cease and Desist letters that you’ve received into our database, to document the chill. We will respond by linking the legalese in the letters to FAQs that explain the allegations in plain English.
Periodically, we issue “weather reports” assessing the climate for Internet activity based on the letters we receive and news reports. What areas (topics, legal categories, jurisdictions) are coolest to online conduct? What activities risk being frozen out altogether? What conduct gets the warmest reception?
Getting Started:
The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse contains multiple topic areas. Choose a topic area to view its introduction, Frequently Asked Questions, and annotated Cease & Desist notices, along with reference material and recent news links.
If you are visiting because you have received a Cease & Desist notice, we invite you to input your notice in the database. Questions on the submission form will help to categorize your letter, and then guide you toward topic areas for further information. Once the notice is in our database, clinical law students will be able to annotate it with questions and answers.
China , Free for expressing one’s thoughts! as serious a fact as Pakistan is a Democracy and Terrorist Free Nation.
De link Google/internet issue from ‘Relations Issue”
yea,
forget Human Rights,Tiananmen, North Korea/Pakistan issues,Dumping substandard products on the international market,protectionism-Yes, what is there to relate to in China?
China may continue to say is in the Right, but two plus is four not withstanding China’s cocooned world.
Time is not far for Chinese people shall rise and expose the ruling Oligarchy. -China rejected Friday a call by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for the lifting of restrictions on the Internet in the communist country, denouncing her criticism as false and damaging to bilateral ties.
A state-run newspaper labeled the appeal from Washington as “information imperialism.”
Clinton’s speech Thursday elevated the issue of Internet freedom in the U.S. human rights agenda as never before. She urged China to investigate cyber intrusions that recently prompted search engine Google to threaten to pull out of the country.
“Regarding comments that contradict facts and harm China-U.S. relations, we are firmly opposed,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement posted Friday on the ministry’s Web site.
“We urge the U.S. side to respect facts and stop using the so-called freedom of the Internet to make unjustified accusations against China,” the statement said.
In her speech in Washington, Clinton cited China as among a number of countries where there has been “a spike in threats to the free flow of information” over the past year. She also named Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.
Ma defended China’s policies promoting the Web, saying the nation boasted more than 380 million users, 3.6 million Web sites, and 180 million blogs.
“The Chinese Internet is open and China is the country witnessing the most active development of the Internet,” Ma said, adding that China regulated the Web according to law and in keeping with its “national conditions and cultural traditions.”
Internet control is considered a crucial matter of state security in China, and Beijing is not expected to offer any concessions to the U.S. Beijing promotes Internet use for commerce, but heavily censors content it deems pornographic, anti-social or politically subversive.
Chinese cyber police troll the Web for sensitive content, and many foreign news and social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, are permanently blocked. Following ethnic rioting in Xinjiang last summer, authorities cut off public Web access entirely to the western region, portions of which they have only recently begun restoring.
Clinton’s speech came on the heels of a Jan. 12 threat from Google to pull out of China unless the government relented on rules requiring the censorship of content the Communist Party considers subversive. The ultimatum came after Google said it had uncovered a computer attack that tried to plunder its software coding and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists protesting Chinese policies.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said Thursday that the company hoped to find a way to maintain a presence in China but intended to stop censoring search results within “a reasonably short time.”
U.S. State Department officials have said they intend to lodge a formal complaint with Chinese officials soon over the Google matter. Clinton not only urged China to investigate the cyber intrusions but openly publish its findings.
China has sought to downplay the Google dispute and Ma repeated China’s standard line that its laws ban hacking and that it was a leading target for cyber crime.
On Thursday, Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying the Google case “should not be linked with relations between the two governments and countries; otherwise, it’s an over-interpretation.”
Clinton’s speech was also denounced by an official newspaper Friday as part of a U.S. campaign to impose its values and denigrate other cultures, labeling it “information imperialism.”
China must defend itself from information from the West that comes “loaded with aggressive rhetoric against those countries that do not follow their lead,” said the English-language Global Times, published by the Communist Party’s official People’s Daily as part of a government-sponsored campaign to develop international media and influence opinion about China overseas.
“Unlike advanced Western countries, Chinese society is still vulnerable to the effect of multifarious information flowing in, especially when it is for creating disorder,” the newspaper said. It offered no examples.
As part of Washington’s promotion of Internet freedoms, U.S. diplomats in China have reached out to bloggers as a method of skirting Beijing’s Internet controls, sometimes called the “Great Firewall of China.”
On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou were hosting Internet-streamed discussions with members of the blogging community to “share insights and answer questions about Clinton’s speech,” the embassy said.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. http://news.aol.com/article/china-clinton-internet-speech-harms-ties/534082
It is no surprise for China shuts down its own people news about them.Loss is China’a.Chinese govt.has been taking Chinese people for granted on many area including Human Rights.Upheaval that is due, will be catastrophic.
Beijing issues rules to make the country more like North Korea.
This week, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released regulations, dated Dec. 15, requiring the registration of all Web sites.
MIIT’s justification was the need to eliminate sexual content. As a Ministry spokesman stated, “This is about mobile pornography, it’s not referring to any other issue.”
The explanation, however comforting it sounds, is disingenuous. The wording of the rules is broad enough to cover all sites, domestic and foreign, whether or not they carry sex-themed material. “Domain names that have not registered will not be resolved or transferred,” the regulations state. In other words, unregistered sites will become unavailable to users in China.
Today, Beijing blocks a multitude of sites, in effect creating a blacklist. Under the new system, there will be a “whitelist”: only registered sites will be accessible inside the country. Once the regulation is fully implemented, China will no longer have an Internet. In effect, it will downgrade to an intranet. At this moment, there are perhaps 270 million Web sites across the world, and only a miniscule number of them will register with the Chinese authorities. http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/24/china-internet-blacklist-beijing-opinions-columnists-gordon-g-chang.html?partner=alerts
Rumors have been flying about Google’s future in China ever since the company’s China head, Kai-Fu Lee, resigned in early September to start an incubator lab in Beijing. His departure seemed awfully abrupt.
Lee scurried to set up an office for his incubator, raise a fund and assemble a team from thousands of job seekers. Lee’s PR reps in China and the Valley hyped his new project as his fulfillment of a dream to coach young Chinese entrepreneurs and support their best start-up ideas.
My venture investing sources in Beijing and Shanghai suspected then that there was more to Lee’s departure than was being told. Maybe Larry Page and Sergey Brin want to exit China and Lee knew this, my sources speculated. Certainly, the rush to the exit door by Google ( GOOG – news – people ) staff in Beijing since September suggests that.
Indeed, Google has been trying to become the top search engine in China for nearly a decade, without success. Google hasn’t said it is shuttering its local operations in China, but the company plans to power its Chinese search business from its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.
Why did the mighty Google fail in China? For years, the company fumbled with inferior search results and unreliable service, not to mention censorship issues and that annoying upstart Baidu, which raced ahead with innovative technology that had a search algorithm for generating results that were more relevant in Mandarin.
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