(Update on January 1: The Government of India has initiated action to unblock the following sites – Dailymotion, Github, Vimeo, and Weebly. According to a press release by the government, the blocked sites were “being used for jihadi propaganda”. The remaining websites could be unblocked on “assurance that law of the land would be complied with”.
One of the blocked sites, Cryptbin, has tweeted that they did not receive any communication from the government.
Regarding website owners not cooperating, Cryptbin has never been contacted by anyone regarding any offending content related to #GOIBlocks
— Cryptbin (@cryptbin) January 1, 2015
The original post from December 31 is unchanged below.)
A number of Indian web users are reporting that they are unable to access websites such as Pastebin, DailyMotion, Vimeo, and Github while using internet providers such as BSNL, Vodafone, and Hathway.
This appears to stem from an order reportedly issued by India’s Department of Telecom on December 17, directing internet service providers to block 32 websites.
Pastebin acknowledged the block on its Twitter account on December 26. The other affected sites have yet to comment.
Pastebin is still blocked in India. We are getting many reports about this. The Indian government has blocked us,… http://t.co/6jqnHcgtIP
— Pastebin.com (@pastebin) December 26, 2014
The order from the Indian authorities was shared on Twitter by Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society.
Insane! Govt orders blocking of 32 websites including @internetarchive @vimeo @github @pastebin #censorship #FoEx pic.twitter.com/F75ngSGohJ
— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh_prakash) December 31, 2014
The notification mentions that 32 sites – including Pastebin, video sharing sites Vimeo and DailyMotion, internet archive site Archive.org, and Github (a web-based software code repository) – have been blocked under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Prakash also speculated on Twitter that the blocks are caused by a copyright claim, but that has not yet been confirmed independently.
Terrorism threats?
Arvind Gupta, head of the BJP’s IT division, tweeted that the websites were blocked for carrying content from muslim extremist group ISIS that represents a threat to India.
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
— Arvind Gupta (@buzzindelhi) December 31, 2014
The sites that have removed objectionable content and/or cooperated with the on going investigations, are being unblocked. 2/2
— Arvind Gupta (@buzzindelhi) December 31, 2014
This is not the first time Indian web users have faced issues with accessing certain websites. In 2012, due to a John Doe order, Indian users were unable to access Vimeo, DailyMotion, Xmarks, and PasteBin across various networks for a period of time. The order was based on a complaint by a film distributor company. In the past, it’s mainly been file-sharing websites that have been blocked in India.
More recently, during the 2014 FIFA World Cup, multiple sites – including Google Documents – were blocked, as per instructions from the Delhi High Court. This was due to a complaint by a media company owned by Sony, who held the rights to broadcast the World Cup in India.
We will update this story as it develops.
This post Indian government orders ISPs to block Vimeo, Github, and 30 other sites (Update: A few websites unblocked) appeared first on Tech in Asia.