What Can India Learn From China?

If You Can't Beat Blogs, Block Them

Global Voices reports the blockage of Blogspot/TypePad-hosted blogs in India.

The official response is "Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?"

Mdeii wholeheartedly supports the Indian nanny:

I wholeheartedly support the government's crackdown on terrorist-blogging. By severely curtailing free speech, we shall forever be free from fear and terror. When these cowardly and stupid terrorist suddenly find themselves unable to read each others blogs, they are sure to give up their meaningless ventures. Let us show our middle finger to blog-terror in the full confidence that they will never be able to use proxies to circumvent this very astute act of Indian intelligence.

Apparently it is easier to block sites than sarcasm.

Vulturo accuses the Indian government of doing big brother:

When the Pakistani government blocked access to blogs hosted on blogspot, it felt sort of ridiculous. Such things could only happen in Pakistan, I reflected smugly. Or China, perhaps. Surely we need not be worried, I thought.

"The terrorists have won," an Indian blog declares.

Boing Boing steps in. Brough notices that Indian mainstream media keeps quiet about the blockage.

Another question is: where is it going to end?

UPDATE 1:
Manish links to MSM reports.

UPDATE 2:
Another A-list American blogger Robert Scoble weighs in but he is fiercely criticised by an Indian blogger:

If you are desperate to access blogspot blogs then you have scores of proxies available. As far as I am concerned I am willing to forego accessing them if that helps makes my country even .01 % more secure.

By this London-based Within/Without blog strikes at the very heart of Indian government's decision:

Anyone who says that this is not* a matter of cyber-censorship is clearly missing the point that the DoT [Department of Telecommunications of India] thinks* they have the right to block any website online ... Blocking one page maybe like taking away a drop from the ocean. However, regardless of how much water you took away - it is the act of taking away that is in question ...

[W]e'll sit down to remind ourselves that somebody sitting in the Government office has decided on your behalf that you are not capable of digesting some content online.

* Link added by LfC.

Comments

[Manish]

[Brough notices that Indian mainstream media keeps quiet about the blockage.]

Not accurate, there's been lots of coverage. See end of:

http://www.ultrabrown.com/posts/india-censors-blogspot

[Letters from China]

Thanks for dropping in, Manish.

When I researched and wrote this post, Google News showed only one related source from Indian mainstream media (Mumbai's Financial Express). Given the constitutional importance of the blockage, I would argue that the coverage is (or was, until Boing Boing and NYT covered the story) disproportionally limited.

In any case, the Indian coverage of this saga is rather unsatisfactory, to say the least:
http://voyage.typepad.com/china/2006/07/in_india_do_blo.html