WTF?!!!!!
I woke up this morning, blissfully unaware that for the last 5 days or so, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) in India have progressively blocked access to all blogs hosted on the blogspot and typepad domains, as well as Yahoo! Geocities homepages! This began apparently because of a directive from the Department of Telecommunications last Friday, requiring the blocking of a limited number of websites. No one seems to know exactly how many, claims range from 17 sites to "a 22 page list" of websites :O!! But ISPs ended up blocking entire domains!
I ran into this article while on my daily round of blogs this morning (well, a little after noon actually, but anyway). From then on there's been quite an avalanche of stuff! After all, this has been raging for almost a whole week now!! First and foremost, there's Bloggers Against Censorship with a fair amount of information and some resources to bypass the blocking etc. I urge people concerned by this turn of events to join the BloggersCollective group and voice their concerns as best as they can. Let people know that there's more than a small handful feeling outraged by this grossly undemocratic crap!
For those who still have absolutely no clue as to what I'm so bothered about, these links should give you some idea how the entire situation unfolded:
Blogger blocked by some ISPs in India?
What is Up with Blogspot (Blogger) Sites in India?
So what's the status on India's blogspot blockade?
Here's more mainstream news coverage of the whole mess. Feel free to add to the list in case you come across something new.
It's good to know that not everyone's sitting on their hands doing nothing though! A number of people have filed RTIs to seek information that should rightfully be public, but is being held from the masses. And it really doesn't sound like a very difficult thing to do! Here's what Nandan, Dina and Abhishek did. I heard something about PILs being lodged as well. It'll be great to see this thing resolved sometime soon!
And if you want to read more:
We Must Have Silence
Blogger has been blocked in India
Blogspot.com being blocked by some Indian ISPs?
"Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?"
mr. orwell, i presume
--
On a more mundane, albeit more physically significant, local note, we finally had two S 76 choppers deliver the much awaited emergency supplies consisting mainly of somewhat over 2 tons of food :). Hopefully that would be the end of the 'imaginative recipes' from the cooks!
Feeling: outraged X-(!!
Listening to: Pearl Jam - Do the evolution
I woke up this morning, blissfully unaware that for the last 5 days or so, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) in India have progressively blocked access to all blogs hosted on the blogspot and typepad domains, as well as Yahoo! Geocities homepages! This began apparently because of a directive from the Department of Telecommunications last Friday, requiring the blocking of a limited number of websites. No one seems to know exactly how many, claims range from 17 sites to "a 22 page list" of websites :O!! But ISPs ended up blocking entire domains!
I ran into this article while on my daily round of blogs this morning (well, a little after noon actually, but anyway). From then on there's been quite an avalanche of stuff! After all, this has been raging for almost a whole week now!! First and foremost, there's Bloggers Against Censorship with a fair amount of information and some resources to bypass the blocking etc. I urge people concerned by this turn of events to join the BloggersCollective group and voice their concerns as best as they can. Let people know that there's more than a small handful feeling outraged by this grossly undemocratic crap!
For those who still have absolutely no clue as to what I'm so bothered about, these links should give you some idea how the entire situation unfolded:
Blogger blocked by some ISPs in India?
What is Up with Blogspot (Blogger) Sites in India?
So what's the status on India's blogspot blockade?
Here's more mainstream news coverage of the whole mess. Feel free to add to the list in case you come across something new.
It's good to know that not everyone's sitting on their hands doing nothing though! A number of people have filed RTIs to seek information that should rightfully be public, but is being held from the masses. And it really doesn't sound like a very difficult thing to do! Here's what Nandan, Dina and Abhishek did. I heard something about PILs being lodged as well. It'll be great to see this thing resolved sometime soon!
And if you want to read more:
We Must Have Silence
Blogger has been blocked in India
Blogspot.com being blocked by some Indian ISPs?
"Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?"
mr. orwell, i presume
--
On a more mundane, albeit more physically significant, local note, we finally had two S 76 choppers deliver the much awaited emergency supplies consisting mainly of somewhat over 2 tons of food :). Hopefully that would be the end of the 'imaginative recipes' from the cooks!
Feeling: outraged X-(!!
Listening to: Pearl Jam - Do the evolution
thanks a ton for the good news about unblocking...
ReplyDelete@ vw: no worries mate! but has the ban been lifted uniformly or are there ISPs still blocking blogger/typepad etc?
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking me. Have now mirrored my site at wordpress. This block fiasco is so humiliating and enraging it makes me choke every time I log on to pkblogs and it asks 'Is your site blocked in India, Pakistan, Iran or China?' Strange company the GOI keeps these days.
ReplyDelete@kray
ReplyDeletenot sure, will find out.
@ erythrocyte: was thinking about doing something similar myself, but gave up for lack of time :|. what's worse is it's taking these ISPs so long to get things back on track even after GoI's latter directive abt 'uninhibited access' to websites!
ReplyDeleteSo the block is lifted, but I fear that the anti-censorship that had awoken among so many will fade back into oblivion again.
ReplyDelete*sigh*
@ nonedone: that I think has already happened.. nething on the RTI front? did anyone get any response yet?
ReplyDelete