How Websites & VPNs Gradually Being Blocked In India Is A Danger To Access Of Ideas & Opinions

Just a week ago, a friend messaged me to ask if there was a problem with Reddit. Was the site online, was there some kind of downtime?

I immediately logged on to check, and it was working fine for me. As it turns out, it was likely some other issue at play, but it got me thinking.

When he mentioned Reddit being inaccessible, the first thought that went through my head was, "Oh God they've banned it." It wouldn't be the first time the Indian government has decided something online was a social menace and acted to get rid of it. Which leads me to my next question.

Why in the blazing hells is this okay?

Way back in July 2015, the government decided it was going to crack down on pornographic websites. They didn't want any of that filth polluting young Indian minds.

The government, for whatever reason, initiated a half-hearted ban and eventually even that faded out. But later in December last year, the ban was back on. This time it was spurred on by the then recent spate of incidents of sexual violence. The thinking was that, removing this negative influence, would help the problem.

Also Read: Govt Blocks All Your Favourite Porn Sites in India? Pornhub Has Your Back With An Easy Bypass Website

Fair enough, potential effectiveness aside, at least that move had an understandable reason in mind. But that's not the only time the government has banned a website has it?

For the past few months, certain websites have steadily been going offline in India. It's not a blanket disruption, just a few sites across a few telcos. The guys over at Freedom House have been keeping a running tab, based on user-submitted reports. So how many is it? Twenty? Fifty?

Try 135 reports.

Sure sure, some of those will be overlapping entries, though from different locations. The point is, a lot of ISPs have been gradually blocking websites.

So let's break that information down shall we? We're going to ignore the reports of Pornhub and RedTube and the likes being blocked, because porn sites are a no-no based on a government order. We can also let go off torrent sites that appear because...well...it's technically just illegal remember? But then there are others.

Streamable, which can technically be used for copyright-violating video sharing is a grey area choice, as is file-sharing portal Mega. But then there's Soundcloud on the list of reports, everybody's favourite Indie music free service. College Humor, which is literally just a site for funny nonsense, has been blocked. Telegram. A freaking encrypted messenger is somehow illegal/dangerous/immodest. What the hell?

And probably the worst crime of all, are all the blocked VPN and proxy services on this list.

At least 60 percent of these reports were from users on Jio connections, with about 30 percent from Airtel, and a few Vodafone complaints thrown in too.

Which is weird. I mean, my memory may be a bit foggy but, didn't we go over this already? Didn't we get net neutrality back in July last year? Isn't it illegal for companies to exhibit bias when it comes to serving up online content over their Internet connections? So, is this somehow ok to do without raising too much of a fuss, or are all these blocks also part of a government order?

Also Read: Rejoice Everyone! Net Neutrality In India Is Alive And Well, ISPs Can't Throttle Speed Of Access

It's not like we'd know, because the the Department of Telecom isn't exactly forthright with the details of orders it sends out. So one of two things is happening.

Either telcos are blatantly flouting the rules of net neutrality or the government is asking more websites to be blocked than they acknowledge.

And unfortunately, India has set a precedent for this kind of behaviour. The government has orchestrated 292 widespread Internet shutdowns since 2012. Some of these were during riots and protests and the sorts, and a disturbing number of them were actually preemptive acts. Even worse, the trend has been climbing, with 134 of those shutdowns being just last year. I mean, we're just in the third month of 2019 and there have been 20 already.

The thing is, Internet shutdowns are always claimed to be a "safety measure". It's always supposedly to keep violence from spreading. But what they're most often about, is silencing public anger before anti-government sentiments can spread. Because if you control the Internet, you control information, and therefore the masses.

Just ask China, or Russia, or North Korea. Making sure people see only what you want them to see online is no different than controlling all the TV stations or newspapers. And because the DoT is so vague with its proclamations, we automatically chalk it up to the particular ISP we're on, without knowing who's really to blame.

Also Read: Putin's Building A Separate Internet For Russia, So He Can Control It Better Just Like China