Internet censorship in India is done by both central and state governments. Domain Name System (DNS) filtering and educating service users in suggested usages is an active strategy and government policy to regulate and block Indian access to Internet content on a large scale. Measures for removing content at the request of content creators through court orders have also become more common in recent years.
The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) classified India as engaged in "selective" Internet filtering in the political, conflict/security, social, and Internet tools areas in 2011,[1][2] describing India as:
A stable democracy with a strong tradition of press freedom, that nevertheless continues its regime of Internet filtering. However, India's selective censorship of blogs and other content, often under the guise of security, has also been met with significant opposition. Indian ISPs continue to selectively filter Web sites identified by authorities. However, government attempts at filtering have not been entirely effective because blocked content has quickly migrated to other Web sites and users have found ways to circumvent filtering. The government has also been criticised for a poor understanding of the technical feasibility of censorship and for haphazardly choosing which Web sites to block.
Reporters Without Borders' "countries under surveillance"
In March 2012, Reporters Without Borders added India to its list of "countries under surveillance",[3] stating that:
Since the Mumbai bombings of 2008, the Indian authorities have stepped up Internet surveillance and pressure on technical service providers, while publicly rejecting accusations of censorship. The national security policy of the world's biggest democracy is undermining freedom of expression and the protection of Internet user's personal data.
Freedom House report
Freedom House's Freedom on the Net 2024 report gives India a status of "Partly Free" with a rating of 50 (0–100, higher is better),[clarification needed] having increased from 41 in 2017. Its Obstacles to Access rating was 14 (0-25 scale); Limits on Content, 19 (0-35 scale); and Violations of User Rights, 17 (0-40 scale).[4] Out of 70 countries rated in the report, India was ranked thirty-seventh.[5]
The Freedom on the Net 2017 report gave India the same status of "Partly Free" with a rating of 41 (scale from 0 to 100, lower is better). Its Obstacles to Access rating was 12 (0–25 scale); Limits on Content, 9 (0–35 scale); and Violations of User Rights, \\\\20 (0–40 scale).[6] Out of the 65 countries included in the report, India was ranked twenty-sixth.[7]
The Freedom on the Net 2012 report stated that:[8]
India's overall Internet Freedom Status was "Partly Free", unchanged from 2009.
India had a score of 39 on a scale from 0 (most free) to 100 (least free), placing twentieth out of the 47 countries worldwide included in the 2012 report.
India ranked fourteenth out of 37 countries worldwide in the 2011 report.
India ranked third out of the 11 countries in Asia included in the 2012 report.
Prior to 2008, censorship of Internet content by the Indian government was relatively rare and sporadic.
Although there was no sustained government policy or strategy to block access to Internet content on a large scale, measures for removing certain content from the web, sometimes for fear they could incite violence, had become more common.
Pressure on private companies to remove information perceived to endanger public order or national security had increased since late 2009 with the implementation of the amended ITA. Companies were required to have designated employees to receive government blocking requests, and assigned up to seven years' imprisonment to private service providers—including ISPs, search engines, and cyber cafés—that did not comply with the government's blocking requests.
Internet users had sporadically faced prosecution for online postings, and private companies hosting the content were obliged by law to hand over user information to the authorities.
In 2009, the Supreme Court ruled that bloggers and moderators could face libel suits and even criminal prosecution for comments posted on their websites.
Prior judicial approval for communications interception was not required, and both central and state governments had the power to issue directives on interception, monitoring, and decryption. All licensed ISPs were obliged by law to sign an agreement allowing Indian government authorities to access user data.
Background
In June 2000, the Indian Parliament enacted the Information Technology (IT) Act to establish a legal framework for regulating Internet use and commerce, including digital signatures, security, and hacking.[1] The Act criminalised the publishing of obscene information electronically and granted police powers to search any premises without a warrant and arrest individuals in violation. A 2008 amendment to the Act reinforced the government's power to block Internet sites and content, and criminalised sending messages deemed inflammatory or offensive.[9] During some of its Internet shutdowns, India cited a law from 1885 meant to regulate telegraphs.[10]
Internet filtering can also be mandated through licensing requirements. For example, ISPs seeking licences to provide Internet services with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) "shall block Internet sites and/or individual subscribers, as identified and directed by the Telecom Authority from time to time" in the interests of "national security".[11] Licence agreements also require ISPs to prevent the transmission of obscene or otherwise objectionable material.[12]
In 2001, the Bombay High Court appointed a committee to oversee issues relating to online pornography and cybercrime.[13] The Court invited the petitioners, Jayesh Thakkar and Sunil Thacker, to make recommendations on cyber laws. The committee published a report analysing the key issues and made recommendations regarding areas such as the licensing of cyber cafés, putative identity cards for cyber café visitors, computer use by minors in public spaces, and maintenance of IP logs by cyber cafés. The committee also recommended that Internet service providers (ISPs) keep correct time logs and records; addressed protection of children from adult websites; advised ISPs to provide parental control software for all Internet connections; and identified lack of technical knowledge among police as a problem. The report was well received by the courts, and its recommendations have been implemented by the police and cyber cafés. The Cyber Crime Investigation Cell was set up pursuant to one of the committee's recommendations.[citation needed]
In 2003, the Government of India established the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) to ensure Internet security,[14] with a stated mission "to enhance the security of India's Communications and Information Infrastructure through proactive action and effective collaboration".[15] CERT-IN is the agency that accepts and reviews requests to block access to specific websites. All licensed Indian ISPs must comply with its decisions, and there is no review or appeals process. Many institutions, including the Ministry of Home Affairs, courts, the intelligence services, the police and the National Human Rights Commission, may call on it for specialist expertise. By stretching the prohibition against publishing obscene content to include filtering of Web sites, CERT-IN was empowered to review complaints and act as sole authority for issuing blocking instructions to the DoT.
Many have argued that giving CERT-IN this power through executive order violates constitutional jurisprudence holding that specific legislation must be passed before the government can encroach on individual rights.[1] For example, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Member of Parliament, commented: "I am mystified by our government's approach both to the internet and to the millions of Indians using it. It does not adhere to the values of our republic and democracy. This matter needs to be addressed urgently, for which I propose to file a PIL in the Supreme Court. Don't kill the freedom of speech, change the IT Rules".[16]
A committee of executives from social media companies meet biweekly in "69A meetings", at which agencies present posts and accounts they want removed with reference to threats to national security and sovereignty for the necessity of takedowns. Under the Modi administration, the meetings became longer, spilling over into days.[17]
Censorship timeline
Pre-2011
Blocking of Dawn website (1999)
Immediately after the Kargil War in 1999, the website of the Pakistani daily newspaper Dawn was temporarily blocked from access within India by Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, a government-owned telecommunications company that at the time had monopoly control of the international Internet gateways in India.[18][19]Rediff, a media news website, claimed that the ban was instigated by the Indian government and then published detailed instructions as to how one could bypass the filter and view the site.[20][clarification needed]
Blocking of Yahoo! groups (2003)
In September 2003, Kynhun, a Yahoo! group linked to the "Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council" (an illegal, minor separatist group from the state of Meghalaya), which discussed the case of the Khasi tribe, was banned.[21] DoT asked Indian ISPs to block the group, but difficulties led to all Yahoo! groups being banned for approximately two weeks.[22]
Blocking of 17 websites (2006)
In July 2006, the Indian government ordered the blocking of 17 websites, including some hosted on the GeoCities, Blogspot, and Typepad domains. Initial implementation difficulties led to these domains being blocked entirely,[23][24][25] but access to sites on these domains other than those specifically banned was restored by most ISPs after about a week.[26]
Orkut and Indian law enforcement agreement (2007)
In 2007, Indian law enforcement entered an agreement with the then-popular social networking site Orkut to track down what it deemed defamatory content, which, in their example, includes content critical of Indian cartoonist and journalist Bal Thackeray.[27]
2011
Adopting of new IT rules
The "IT Rules 2011" were adopted in April 2011 as a supplement to the 2000 Information Technology Act (ITA). The new rules required Internet companies to remove within 36 hours of being notified by the authorities any content deemed objectionable, particularly if its nature were identified as "defamatory", "hateful", "harmful to minors", or "infringes copyright". Cyber café owners were required to photograph their customers; follow instructions on how their cafés should be set up so all computer screens were in plain sight; keep copies of client IDs and their browsing histories for one year; and forward this data to the government each month.[3]
Banning of websites
In March 2011, the Government banned several websites—Typepad, Mobango, and Clickatell—for some time without warning.[28]
On 21 July of that year, all file hosting websites were blocked by ISPs to prevent copyright infringement of the film Singham, causing anger amongst Internet users.[29] This ban was later lifted.
On 24 December of that year, Reliance Communications, a widely used ISP, again blocked access to file-sharing sites, having obtained a John Doe order from a Delhi court to help protect the movie Don 2 several days before its release. The block was lifted on 30 December.[30][31]
Pre-screening of Internet content
On 5 December 2011, The New York Times India Ink—the publication's "first-ever country-specific site for news, information, culture, and conversation"[32]—reported that the Indian government had asked several social media sites and Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, and Yahoo!, to "prescreen user content from India and to remove disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content before it goes online".[33] Top officials from the Indian units of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Facebook had several meetings with Kapil Sibal, India's acting telecommunications minister, to discuss the issue in recent months, India Ink reported; and at one of those meetings, Sibal asked these companies "to use human beings to screen content, not technology".[citation needed] The next day, Sibal held a press conference confirming the India Ink story and commenting to more than 100 reporters, "We have to take care of the sensibilities of our people", because of the importance of cultural ethos.[34][35]
On the 7th of December, The Times of India revealed that the search engine Google was asked to remove around 358 items by the government, out of which 255 items were said to criticise it as per a Google transparency report, adding that the government had also asked Google to remove 236 items from Orkut and 19 from YouTube for the same reason. Other reasons included defamation (39 requests); privacy and security (20 requests); impersonation (14 requests); hate speech (eight requests); pornography (three requests); and national security (one request). Google admitted that 51% of the total requests were partially or fully complied with.[36]
The news of banning and blocking of objectionable content on the Internet was viewed negatively by many Indian netizens, and #IdiotKapilSibal trended on Twitter following netizens' expression of outrage[37] over what was seen as a way to block websites criticising the government. In an interview to NDTV, Sibal responded by saying that most of the content being requested to be removed was pornographic in nature and involved deities, which could have caused communal disharmony.[38] Although Sibal claimed that the government wanted to remove pornographic content, however, a transparency report published by Google claimed that the content including protests against social leaders or used offensive language in reference to religious leaders was not removed.[39] In its transparency report, Google stated:[40]
We received requests from state and local law enforcement agencies to remove YouTube videos that displayed protests against social leaders or used offensive language in reference to religious leaders. We declined the majority of these requests and only locally restricted videos that appeared to violate local laws prohibiting speech that could incite enmity between communities. In addition, we received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 236 communities and profiles from Orkut that were critical of a local politician. We did not comply with this request, since the content did not violate our Community Standards or local law.
When content is legal and does not violate our policies, we will not remove it just because it is controversial, as we believe that people's differing views, so long as they are legal, should be respected and protected.
Although talks continue between the government and officials of Internet companies like Google and Facebook, there was no consensus on this issue.[42]
Ban on Cartoons Against Corruption
In 2011, a nationwide anti-corruption movement, India Against Corruption, gathered pace under the leadership of a veteran Gandhian, Anna Hazare, demanding passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill to put an ombudsman in place with power to deal with corruption in public places. Aseem Trivedi, a political cartoonist, joined the crusade and started a cartoon-based campaign, Cartoons Against Corruption, to support the movement with his art. He launched a website, www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.com, consisting of his sharp anti-corruption cartoons targeting the corrupt system and politicos.
During a hunger strike by Hazare to support the bill Trivedi displayed his cartoons on the MMRDA ground, Mumbai.[43][44] On the first day of anti-corruption protests , 27 December, he received an email from BigRock, the domain name registrar with which his website was registered, saying: "We have received a complaint from Crime Branch, Mumbai against the domain name 'cartoonsagainstcorruption.com' for displaying objectionable pictures and texts related to flag and emblem of India. Hence we have suspended the domain name and its associated services."[45] The complaint had been made by a Mumbai-based advocate and Congress Party leader, R.P. Pandey, stating that "defamatory and derogatory cartoons" were displayed as posters during Hazare's hunger strike in Mumbai. Noting that the posters were created by Trivedi and were "believed to be made at the instance of Shri Anna Hazare", the complaint requested "strict legal action in the matter".[46] Following the ban on his website, Trivedi uploaded all the cartoons to a blog he quickly created.[47]
2012
Delhi court summonses
Screenshot of a blocked site
In January 2012, a Delhi court issued summonses to Google and Facebook headquarters for objectionable content.[48] This was followed by the Delhi High Court saying that websites such as Google and Facebook were liable for the content posted on their platform by users, as they benefitted from the content.[49] Google responded to both the Court and Minister for Communication and IT Kapil Sibal, stating that it was impossible to pre-screen content.[50] A plea was made by an educationist, citing that any sanctions against the online services would directly affect fundamental rights and be against public interest.[51] The Delhi Court also allowed Yahoo!'s case to be heard separately after it appealed citing it did not host any objectionable content and did not fall under the social networking site category.[52]
In May 2012, Anonymous India (AnonOpsIndia), a branch of the hacktivist group Anonymous, hacked the servers of Reliance Communications to protest the blocking of Vimeo, The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, and other torrent sites. The ISP Reliance Communications stated that it simply followed a court order.[55][56] The group also hacked Reliance DNS servers, preventing direct access to Twitter, Facebook, and many other websites in India on 26 May 2012 for allegedly blocking its Twitter handle @OpIndia_Revenge.[57] They went on to warn the government to restore all the blocked websites by 9 June 2012, and planned nationwide protests on the same date.[58][59] After this hack, Anonymous also released a list of websites that had been blocked by Reliance without any orders from the government, raising questions of private and unaccountable censorship by telecom providers.[60]
Parliamentary annulment motion against 2011 IT rules
An annulment motion against the Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011—moved by Member of Parliament (MP) P. Rajeev of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the Rajya Sabha—was the first serious attempt by internet freedom activists to get the Information Technology Act, 2000 discussed and reviewed by the country's lawmakers. Not unexpectedly, the motion (specifically against the rules governing intermediaries – clause (zg) of subsection (2) of section 87 read with subsection (2) of section 79 of the IT Act, 2000) was not carried. However, the discussion that preceded it demonstrated the concerns of parliamentarians about what Internet freedom activists have termed the "draconian" provisions of the IT Act.[61][62]
Save Your Voice, a movement against Internet censorship in India,[63] was founded by cartoonist Aseem Trivedi and journalist Alok Dixit in January 2012. The movement opposes the Information Technology Act of India and demands democratic rules for the governance of the Internet. The campaign targets rules framed under the Information Technology Act, 2000.[64]
Madras High Court decision that entire websites cannot be blocked
On 15 June 2012, the Madras High Court passed an order saying that entire websites cannot be blocked on the basis of "John Doe" orders:
The order of interim injunction dated 25 April 2012 is hereby clarified that the interim injunction is granted only in respect of a particular URL where the infringing movie is kept and not in respect of the entire website. Further, the applicant is directed to inform about the particulars of URL where the interim movie is kept within 48 hours.[65]
The High Court provided this clarification after being approached by a consortium of Internet service providers (ISPs). The order was welcomed by the Indian media and net users.[66][67]
Banning of domain hosting sites
Starting in July 2012, several domain hosting sites were banned and sites such as Buydomains.com, Fabulous.com, and Sedo.co.uk were blocked. When these sites were opened, a message saying that they had been blocked by the Department of Telecommunications or a court order was displayed.[68][69]
Between 18 and 21 August 2012, the Government of India ordered more than 300 specific URLs blocked. The blocked articles, accounts, groups, and videos were said to contain inflammatory content with fictitious details relating to Assam violence and supposedly promoting the North East exodus. These URLs included the domains of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, BlogSpot, WordPress, Google Plus, the Times of India, Wikipedia, and others.[70] Many of the blocked URLs focussed on right-wing activism against corruption in India.[71][72]
This blockage raised questions about freedom of speech in the largest democracy in the world, and also about the censorship of people and posts debunking rumours.[73]The Economic Times called it levels of censorship "that have not so far been seen in India".[74] Over four days from 18 August on, the Government of India issued directives to ISPs to block the Twitter accounts of two Delhi-based journalists–Kanchan Gupta and Shiv Aroor–and Pravin Togadia. The government also blocked the website of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and several other right-wing websites.[74] In addition, articles from Wikipedia and news reports of violence in Assam on the websites of The Times of India, Firstpost, The Daily Telegraph, and Al Jazeera were blocked.[74] A petition was created by the Indian diaspora in the US to oppose Internet censorship in India.[75]
Defacement of Telecom Minister's website
In November 2012, Anonymous India defaced Indian Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal's constituency website in protest against an amendment to the Information Technology Act and the recent crackdown on netizens for comments posted online.[76]
Defacement of BSNL website
The website of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited's (BSNL), www.bsnl.co.in, was hacked by Anonymous India on 13 December 2012. They defaced the website with a picture stating that they were protesting against section 66A of the IT Act and in support of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi and journalist Alok Dixit. The duo went on a hunger striker to protest against section 66A.[77][78]
2013
Blocking of 39 websites
In an order dated 13 June 2013, the DoT directed Indian ISPs to block 39 websites, although the order did not specify a reason or law under which the websites were to be blocked. Most were web forums in which Internet users shared images and URLs to pornographic files. However, some of the websites were also image and file hosts, mostly used to store and share files that were not pornographic. Although watching or distributing child pornography is illegal in India, watching adult pornography is not. The blocked websites were hosted outside India and claimed to operate under a U.S. rule requiring performers to be over 18 years of age.[79]
2014
Ban of file-sharing and file-hosting sites
In an order dated 23 June 2014, the Delhi High Court, upon a request made by Sony Entertainment, ordered 472 file-sharing and file-hosting websites blocked, including The Pirate Bay, Google Docs, Google Videos, and Google's URL shortener (goo.gl). This was contrary to the 2012 Madras High Court orders that blocked only URLs referencing web pages with illegal content, rather than entire websites.[80] However, it was reported on 7 July 2014 that an updated court order blocked 219 sites. Many file storage and torrent websites were included, but no Google sites.[81]
Blocking of Savukku.net site
In an interim order on a petition filed by newsreader Mahalaxmi,[citation needed] Justice Cyril Selvam blocked the entire website www.savukku.net. This order, dated 28 February 2014, directly contradicted an earlier order by the Madras High Court dated 15 April 2012 against banning the entire website instead of specific URLs.[82]Earlier in February, Savukku.net had exposed tapes of communication between DMK MP Kanimozhi and former Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Jaffer Sait; between Jaffer Sait and Kalaignar TV's former director Sharad Kumar; and between DMK President M Karunanidhi's Secretary K.Shanmuganathan and Jaffer Sait.[83] Judge Selvam was considered close to Karunanidhi's family:
Justice CT Selvam became judge of the Madras High Court when Karunanidhi was the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu during 2006–2011. Just a couple of hours before taking oath as judge Justice Selvam called on Karunanidhi and got his blessings and this was revealed through a govt press release with photograph by the Tamil Nadu government's Information Department.[83]
The DoT ordered the blocking of 32 websites including the Internet Archive, GitHub, Dailymotion, and Vimeo, as they could host terror content relating to ISIS; but the sites were no longer blocked as of 1 January 2015 as the order had been reversed and the unblocking process had begun on compliant websites.[84]
2015
On 1 August 2015, 857 pornographic sites were blocked under section 79 3(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, to restrict access to pornographic content.[citation needed] The list of sites, containing popular ones, had been generated by Suresh Kumar Shukla,[85][86] founder of Filternet Foundation, maker of pornography-blocking software, and given to government officials by petitioner Kamlesh Vaswani on 17 October 2014 in the Supreme Court of India.[87] The block was ordered by the DoT on 31 July 2015, copies of the order of which are available through media websites;[88][89][90][91][92] but the agency lifted the ban shortly afterward on 5 August, as porn was a major Internet traffic (as high as 70%) and telecom companies were losing revenue. Additionally, people criticised the law enforcement (section 67 of the IT Act 2000).[93][94]
2016
After the high-profile death of Burhan Wani, a Kashmiri Islamist militant in Indian-administered Kashmir and the ensuing protests in July of 2016, the government shut down the Internet in the area for five months.[95] In August, some Bollywood studios came up with a public education message that black money generated from the pre-release of their content through offline markets was being used for terrorism, though their sources were not clear. Reports did show that piracy losses were significantly high.[96]
In August 2017, the Madras High Court ordered that the Internet Archive be blocked in India, following complaints by film studios that the service had been used to disseminate copyright-infringing copies of their films.[99][clarification needed]
2018
In October 2018, the government directed ISPs to block 827 websites that hosted pornographic content, following an order by the state of Uttarakhand High Court, effectively reinstating the previously rescinded 2015 porn ban. Although the Court had asked for 857 websites to be blocked, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MEITy) removed 30 portals with no pornographic content listings.
The Court also asked the DoT to ban pornographic websites in India, citing an incident from Dehradun in which a 10th-standard girl was raped by four of her seniors, who later told police that they had done so after watching pornographic content on the Web. As per the directions of the Uttarakhand High Court and the regulations of DoT, Indian ISPs banned pornographic websites across the country.[100]
2019
Between January and October of that year, MEITy revealed that it had issued blocking orders for 20 websites in response to a Right to Information (RTI) query filed by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) India, a Delhi-based not-for-profit legal services organisation.[101]
During the same period, the ministry ordered social media platforms to take down 3,433 URLs[102] under section 69A of India's Information Technology Act[clarification needed] to block users and posts across social media platforms.[103] An Indian court ordered Facebook, Twitter, and Google to remove government-flagged content globally, not just in India.[104]
In February of that year, the Indian government had proposed giving itself new powers. Under the new proposed rules, Indian officials could demand Facebook, Google, Twitter, TikTok, WhatsApp, and other platforms to remove posts or videos that the officials deemed unlawful or an invasion of privacy and could trace a message to its original sender.[105]
Over 130 complaints around the country from users appeared about blocked access to VPN, proxy sites. There were also reports of platforms like Telegram, Reddit, and SoundCloud being inaccessible. There was no official word from the DoT on why these platforms were blocked, a common practice by DoT, which has a record of being non-transparent about blockings.[106]
2020
In June 2020, in retaliation for a military clash between Indian and Chinese troops in a disputed territory along the shared border between Ladakh and western China, the Indian government banned around 60 mobile apps published by Chinese companies, most notably including TikTok, WeChat, and mobile games such as PUBG Mobile.[107][108][109] The stated reason for the bans was to protect India's sovereignty, integrity, and security, and its citizens from software that was "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in an unauthorised manner to servers outside India".[108][110] Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), said the censorship was absent from well-defined national security criteria and had "impacted more Indians than any before".[111]The Indian Express said that the loss of revenue might drive Indian TikTok stars to rival platforms.[112]The Times of India published an editorial supporting the block.[113]
Around 40 websites operated by the pro-Khalistan outfit Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) were blocked in response to its starting registrations on its websites for Referendum 2020.[114] There were several reports of the search engine DuckDuckGo being inaccessible to Indian users.[115]
In July, environmental groups leading the movement against the Indian government's new Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 Draft reported that their websites were inaccessible to users in India. In addition, Fridays for Future India and several other environmental collectives reported that their websites were blocked/taken down, for reasons unknown to them and without prior notice of any sort.[116]
In early February, Twitter refused to comply with orders from the Indian government to ban over a thousand accounts related to farmers' protests. The government warned Twitter employees that they could face up to seven years in jail if the company failed to remove certain accounts that the government alleged were spreading misinformation.[118]
On 10 February, the company took action on more than 500 accounts and also reduced the visibility of several hashtags that violated its rules, stating, however, that accounts belonging to news media outlets, journalists, and activists or politicians were not taken down.[119] This defiance angered officials, leading to the government's[17] issuance of new rules aimed at social media companies to comply with local laws, among them the requirement for social media companies to publish a compliance report every month detailing the complaints and the actions taken on them.[120]
Government's handling of COVID-19 pandemic
In late April, many citizens were angry with the government's poor performance in handling the COVID-19 pandemic[121] and took to social media to express their dissatisfaction. Following an emergency order by the government to Twitter to take down tweets from high-profile users criticising its handling of the pandemic, the company complied and withheld these tweets for users in India.[122] The hashtag #crocodiletears, which criticised Prime Minister Modi, was ordered to be removed and information on the users who tweeted it to be handed over. When the company resisted, officials claimed that it was being used by terrorists, with a later additional claim that it had pornography. A Twitter investigator found some posts being sent from a location near a police building, and concluded that the government was trying to justify the censorship requests.[17]
Twitter's labelling of BJP politicians' tweets
In May, Twitter labelled tweets from several BJP politicians including Sambit Patra, its spokesperson, as "manipulated media". In the tweet, he claimed that Congress was using a "toolkit" to derail the government's efforts of handling the pandemic. Fact-checking debunked the claim, however.[citation needed] The government expressed strong objections over the labels, saying that Twitter acted prejudicially, and asking the company to remove the labels in the interest of "fairness and equity".[123]
Subsequently, Delhi Police with TV cameras visited Twitter's Delhi and Gurgaon offices to seek more information.[17] After an hour, however, the police vacated the premises because the offices were closed and no employees were present to engage with. In a statement, the Delhi Police disputed the description of the search event as "raiding"[124] although reportedly, the police had not had a search warrant.[125]
Twitter expressed concerns for its employees, the police's intimidation tactics, and the potential threat to freedom of expression in India. It also said it was particularly concerned over the rule whereby the compliance officer—a position to be set up by social media companies with over 5 million users under new social media rules—would be criminally liable for the content on the platform. The company requested the government for a three-month extension to enforce the new requirements.[126] In a Right to Information Act (RTI) reply to the IFF, the Ministry of Electronics and IT said it did not have the power to direct Twitter to not label these tweets as misleading.[127]
The company became more and more compliant with taking down tweets and accounts requested by the government, especially after Elon Musk's purchase of the company. Through a wave of new regulations and the weight of law enforcement agencies, the government changed Twitter from being a company very resistant to censorship requests.[17]
2022
In 2022, under national security grounds, new regulations were implemented by CERT-IN to require retention of customer data by VPN, web hosting services, and cloud service providers for five years. Accordingly, some VPN providers, such as ExpressVPN and Surfshark, announced that they would no longer use servers under Indian jurisdiction in order to preserve the privacy of their customers.[128]
2023
In April 2023, new regulations were enacted that would require online intermediaries to censor and remove content deemed to be false or misleading by a body appointed by MEITy.[129][130]
During this year, Internet services were suspended on multiple occasions in Manipur amid ethnic violence,[131][132] though services were ultimately restored in December.[133] Allegedly, it was the longest-running Internet shutdown worldwide in 2023.[134]
2024: Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation
In July 2024, Asian News International (ANI) filed a lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation in the Delhi High Court, claiming to have been defamed in its article on Wikipedia, and seeking ₹2 crore (US$240,000) in damages.[135][136][137] On 5 September, the Court threatened to hold Wikimedia in contempt for failing to disclose information about the editors who had made changes to the article, warning that Wikipedia might be blocked in India upon further non-compliance. The judge on the case stated, "If you don't like India, please don't work in India... We will ask government to block your site".[138][139] In response, Wikimedia emphasised that the information in the article was supported by multiple reliable secondary sources.[140] Justice Manmohan said, "I think nothing can be worse for a news agency than to be called a puppet of an intelligence agency, stooge of the government. If that is true, the credibility goes."[141] On 21 October, the Wikimedia Foundation suspended access to the article for the lawsuit itself, due to an order from the Court stating that the article violated the sub judice principle. This is believed to be the first time an English Wikipedia page had been taken down after a court order.[142][143]
On March 17, 2025, at a hearing in the Supreme Court of India, a two-judge bench, consisting of BR Gavoi and KV Vishwanathan, questioned the Delhi High Court's decision, stating that judges and courts should be more tolerant of criticism and that requiring removal of content because of criticism might not be correct. At the same time, the judges also stated that the order was about freedom of the press. The court remarked, "This concerns press freedom. If it is Wikipedia today, it could be someone else tomorrow."[144][145][146] On 9 May of that year, the Supreme Court of India reversed the Delhi High Court's decision to take down the article about the defamation case,[147][148] and access to the article was restored.[149]
2025
India banned 16 Pakistani YouTube channels with 63 million subscribers for spreading provocative communal content after the Pahalgam terror attack, based on recommendations from the Home Ministry.[150][151] On 9 May, amidst the 2025 India–Pakistan standoff, the Indian government ordered X (formerly Twitter) to withhold 8,000 accounts from India. The block list included foreign media Global Times, Xinhua News Agency, and TRT World; Indian news outlets Maktoob Media, The Kashmiriyat and The Wire; and prominent users, including Indian journalist Anuradha Bhasin.[152] X stated that it had not received information on specific posts, and in some cases no evidence or justification at all, for the accounts ordered blocked. France 24 linked the blocking spree to a campaign targeting the social media of prominent Pakistani individuals and media.[153]
Blocked websites
The process of blocking websites in India is non-transparent and the government does not maintain a public list of all the blocked websites.[154] Over the years, the government has banned thousands of websites and URLs in the country with the help of ISPs or under court directive. For example, in August 2015, the central government of India ordered the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and ISPs based in India to ban domestic and international porn websites; and in June 2016, it further banned over 200 URLs for providing "escort services".[155]
In response, nearly 857 websites were blocked.[156] Star India Pvt. Ltd., an entertainment company owned by 21st Century Fox, successfully gained authorisation to force ISPs[clarification needed] to block entire websites to tackle Internet piracy and sharing of its copyrighted content. This authorisation was gained by falsifying data that these sites were uploading videos when it was a user-centred activity, and covering up the fact that each of these websites had active departments to regulate any sort of infringement and misuse of their services.[citation needed] Prathiba M Singh, who had represented Star India, cited poor resources of media giants like itself for targeting these domains without a block expiry period. The company's legal team termed these sites rogue and expressed delight in its successive filing from 2014 and incognito win to violate freedom of trade on the Internet, at least in India. Some critics, however, said it would be lifted eventually by recognition of the fallacy as in similar previous cases.[157]
Many voices were raised on social media that the proceedings were highly suspicious and gained an alternate means of profit rather than because of the initial spike of alleged piracy of these copyrighted contents, which strengthened an ongoing practice of bottle-necking Internet users to forced payment and culture of on-demand online access to content.[158][159] This took place the same week in which media personnel's filter-free over-indulgences to manipulate ongoing cases and political statements without guidelines were appealed.[160][161][clarification needed]
In 2016, India also put forwarded a new plan to control its netizens' Internet usage. Accessing of pop-ups from advertising services or malware infection of websites banned in India might invite a three-year jail sentence and a fine of ₹300,000 (equivalent to ₹430,000orUS$5,100 in 2023). Until then, URLs and websites had been blocked using DNS-filtering, meaning that the DNS of the blocked site was added to a list maintained by the ISP and that whenever a user tried connecting to a site on that list, the ISP's DNS server would block the request. Officials suspected that netizens were knowingly or unknowingly circumventing these measures.
The government also intended to provide broad educational information classes, free operating systems with utilities to prevent malware, free access to the Internet, and computerised activities of daily life as a primary method. It joined hands with media content providers and ISPs such as big companies Tata Communications and Airtel to manage a number of Internet gateways in India, although many legal, technical, and social action groups considered this a threatening approach. Many social action groups said these were an inappropriate expenditure of time and money while real issues like unemployment and drug use, lack of access to education and freedom of religious practice, and safety of women and children were continuing to rise.
Lawyers with technical background said this might be a warning message and thought DNS-filtering a better practice to enforce anti-piracy laws in India. Some of the lawyers were also wary about how these actions would get reflected in terms of hostility towards human rights, the implications of these fines, and the agendas of profiteering stakeholders, asking if it were the government's first step to a long-term plan of "monitoring the whole world wide web", like China.[citation needed] Many of these services are malvertising, click-away access and pop-ups, the government's intention of how to tackle these issues, and problems with the plan heavily favouring of a corporation's margin of profit over catering to its users' needs.[clarification needed] Other groups expressed fear and uneasiness about whether these actions would lead to Emergency-Era-like arrests for anything believed by government bodies to be an "offence under the laws of India, including but not limited to under Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957".[162]
For instance, this was a warning allegedly created for Tata and Airtel users with threats implied beyond normal DoT remainder and block message:[163][clarification needed]
This URL has been blocked under the instructions of the Competent Government Authority or in compliance with the orders of a Court of competent jurisdiction. Viewing, downloading, exhibiting or duplicating an illicit copy of the contents under this URL is punishable as an offence under the laws of India, including but not limited to under Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957 which prescribe imprisonment for three years and also fine of up to Rs. 3,00,000/-. Any person aggrieved by any such blocking of this URL may contact at urlblock [at] tatacommunications [dot] com who will, within 48 hours, provide the details of relevant proceedings under which the relevant High Court or Authority can be approached for redressal of the grievance.
The situation leading to these sudden moves was reportedly due to the influence of film studios in India and courts that had regularly issued orders in their favour. Often these moves were made with studios' contracted lawyers approaching courts at regular intervals, before as well as after a movie's release, to seek preventive blocks on URLs on a list that they compiled. In reality, these lists were unprofessionally and "poorly compiled and often block is sought on full websites just on the basis of whims and fancies".[citation needed] "Once this order are issued, the copies of the order along with the list of URLs to be blocked go to DoT, which then they pass an order to ISPs to block these sites".[citation needed]
When a URL was blocked, it remained blocked even years after the film's release without expiry. Patent lawyers also suggested making practical changes in the laws according to the current e-environment, such as making materials accessible within six months to one year and protecting the content from manipulation and creative infringement of the same under copyright laws to lessen piracy problems.[164]
In a response to an RTI application by SFLC India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology stated that 14,221 websites/URLs had been blocked between 2010 and 2018.[165] In 2011, journalist Tanul Thakur created the Dowry Calculator, a satirical website on the dowry system. In 2018, the website was blocked by the Government of India, which was challenged by Thakur, with legal assistance from the IFF before the Delhi High Court in November 2019, as being illegal and unconstitutional. The case came up for hearing on 21 March 2022, and the Court recorded Thakur's submissions that he had not been given an opportunity to be heard before the website was blocked. The Court directed the Union of India to provide the entire case record, and asked it to consider giving Thakur a post-decisional hearing, including opportunity to take corrective measures, if necessary.[166]
In February 2022, the website of VideoLAN, the developers of the free and open-source media player software VLC Media Player, was blocked by most Indian ISPs. It was reported that the block might have been related to a cyberattack by a Chinese group that had been using compromised versions of VLC as a payload for malicious software.[citation needed] In October 2022, VideoLAN, with assistance from the IFF, filed a legal notice seeking information on the block, alleging that the government had breached the site blocking rules by not providing notice or opportunity for a hearing. Although information about the block was not published, the block was lifted in November 2022.[167][168][169]
Internet shutdowns
India reportedly has the highest number of internet shutdowns in the world—even higher than all other countries combined—with 771 shutdowns imposed between 2016 and 2023, according to Access Now.[170] In 2018 the organisation reported that India accounted for 134 out of 196 documented Internet shutdowns globally.[171]
The reasons for the shutdowns range from protests and political unrest to elections and exams. Internet shutdowns have often helped the government to throttle dissent and mass public gatherings.[172] The think tank Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) estimated that the 16,315 hours of Internet shutdown between 2012 and 2017 cost the Indian economy approximately $3.04 billion.[173] It was further estimated that in 2020, Internet shutdowns caused US$2.8 billion of damage to India's economy, harming businesses, teaching, and health care.[174] In 2021, India recorded a total of 317.5 hours of Internet shutdown and 840 hours of bandwidth throttling, costing $582.8 million.[175]
This is a list of notable applications that have been banned in India pursuant to section 69-A of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009.[181]
Five Indian states have undergone Internet shutdowns.
Jammu and Kashmir
Before revocation of the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir, Internet services were shut down as part of curfew and complete communications blackout—including cable TV, landlines, and cellphones—on 4 August 2019.[185] Internet was restored on 25 January 2020, when the government allowed people of Kashmir to access the Internet on 2G with whitelisted websites, but it was not until a year later in February 2021 that access to high-speed Internet was restored.[186] This blockade and other frequent Internet shutdowns in the region have been termed digital apartheid by a local human rights group.[187] Many students were affected during lockdown because they could not study properly in their online classes due to overly slow Internet speed. Broadband services were not restored until 5 March 2020 because of technical error preventing BSNL from doing so, at which point broadband was restored with full access but mobile Internet at only 2G.
The state government of Jammu and Kashmir shut down the Internet on 17–18 March 2014 in Jammu and Kashmir to stop separatists from addressing a United Nations Human Rights Council sideline event in Geneva, Switzerland via video link.[188] Internet access was again shut down for mobile and landline broadband in July 2016 against the backdrop of protests.
On 26 April 2017[189], the state government also ordered the various ISPs operating in the valley to block access to 22 social networking websites for one month, charging among other things that they were "endangering public life and property and causing unrest/disharmony in the state". The order was passed by exercising powers conferred under the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 which had technically become obsolete c.2008 when the Government of India decided to stop all telegraph services in the country.[citation needed] As a result of this censorship, people living in the valley resorted to circumvention tactics in the form of using web proxies, VPNs among other things. The popularity of these tactics moved the government to block access to Android Play Store, among other services, for some time to prevent citizens from getting access to these services.[citation needed]
The banned services included widely used services such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp, but the list also included websites like QQ, Baidu, and Qzone, which were not used outside of mainland China. Xanga, a website on the list, shut down in 2013.[190] The inclusion of these websites, mostly in Mandarin, had people concerned that the censorship was an attempt to suppress dissent by all means necessary, as opposed to the claim of "maintaining peace and harmony".[citation needed]
Rajasthan
In In September 2021, Internet services across Rajasthan were suspended to prevent cheating on the teachers recruitment exam.[191] The next month the Internet was suspended in four districts of Rajasthan following violent protests[192] and across Rajasthan in view of the Rajasthan Administrative services exam.[193]
Internet services were also blocked in the state for days amid Hindu-Muslim religious tensions in the aftermath of the murder of Kanhaiya Lal in June 2022 to stop the spread of a video made by his killers.[194]
Gujarat
The State Government of Gujarat shut down the Internet in Vadodara, from 27 to 30 September 2014 due to clashes between two communities, even though only the central government had the power to shut it down under the Information Technology Act, 2000,[195] and in a declared state of emergency under Article 352 of the Constitution of India when freedom of speech and expression was suspended. No formal announcement was made about this shutdown by the city police or the ISPs.[196][197][198]
When the Patidar reservation agitation turned violent on 25 August 2015, the Internet services on mobile phones and broadband were restricted as certain social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook were blocked from 26 to 31 August 2015 across the state.[199]
Both SMS and Internet/data services were suspended in the state from 30 January to 20 February 2017 after being blocked for 20 days that had been initiated to prevent spread of violence in the state. This situation arose when two Naga tribal bodies served a three-day ultimatum to Zeliang, an acronym for three distinct but related Naga tribes, to step down following the government's decision to hold local body elections with 33% reservation for women in 12 towns across the state and the death of two persons in clashes between police and protestors at Dimapur, Nagaland's commercial hub, on the night of 31 January 2017.[202][203][204]
Manipur
This section needs to be updated. The reason given is: The section needs to be updated to include information about internet shutdown during the 2023 Manipur violence. This source may be used. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(December 2023)
The State Government of Manipur shut down the Internet of some service providers that provided Internet through mobile technology 2G/3G/4G in the state from the evening of 1 September to the afternoon of 8 September 2015, due to agitation over the passing of three bills. Police and protesters clashed in different areas of the Churachandpur district as mobs went on a rampage attacking residences of ministers, members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), and members of Parliament (MPs).[205][206]
The government ordered the respective deputy commissioner (DC) to shut down mobile data service in Imphal West and Imphal East district from 17 December 2016 till further order.[207] The next day, the Home Department of the Government of Manipur was ordered to shut down all mobile data services and SMSs in the state from 10:00 on 18 December to 10:00 on 30 December 2016.[208]
The government ordered all forms of telecom services except voice calls suspended in Manipur for five days, taking effect from the night of 19 July 2018 to prevent anti-national and anti-social messages on social media. Raghumani Singh, Special Secretary (Home)–Manipur, said in an order issued in the governor's name that the prohibition was imposed under Rule II of the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules, 2017.[209][210]
A second time in 2018, the government ordered shutdown of mobile data services in Manipur for five days, taking effect from 21September 2018. Again the prohibition was imposed under Rule II of the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules, 2017. An order issued by Special Secretary (Home) – Manipur Singh said the step was taken to prevent spread of rumours, "which might have serious repercussion for the law and order situation in the entire state of Manipur".[211][212]
For the third time, the state government ordered a shutdown of mobile data services in Manipur for five days under the leadership of Chief Minister N. Biren Singh in 2019, amidst protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that took effect at midnight of 11 February 2019. District Magistrate for Imphal West Naorem Praveen Singh also barred cable news channels from "transmission of agitation or protest" indefinitely "until further orders", under section 19 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, prohibiting transmission of agitation or protests that might lead to violence.[213][214]
Internet and mobile data services were restored after an order in the name of the governor, issued by Raghumani Singh, Special Secretary (Home)–Manipur on 13 February 2019. The CAB[clarification needed] was not tabled on Rajya Sabha, as the law and order situation improved and came back to normalcy.
On 16 March 2020, the Government of Manipur issued an order, signed by H. Gyan Prakash[clarification needed] in the name of the governor, to suspend Internet services for three days to avoid usage of social media networks, which might lead to escalation of an incident between two communities at Chasad Village in the Kamjong district.[215][216] Internet services were restored the next day, reducing the period of suspension to one day.[citation needed]
On 6 August 2022, the Government of Manipur again issued an order, signed by H. Gyan Prakash in the name of the governor, to suspend Internet mobile services for five days to avoid usage of social media networks, which might lead to escalation of the tense situation in Manipur. Three days later, the Government of Manipur issued an order relaxing the suspension, signed by H. Gyan Prakash, in view of positive developments.[217]
1 2 3 "ONI Country Profile: India"Archived 17 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine , Access Contested, Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain (Eds), OpenNet Initiative, MIT Press, November 2011, pp. 299–308
↑ Due to legal concerns the OpenNet Initiative does not check for filtering of child pornography and because their classifications focus on technical filtering, they do not include other types of censorship.
↑ "Internet Freedom", 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: India, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 8 April 2011
↑ Schedule C, Section 1.10.2Archived 8 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine , Government of India, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Department of Telecommunications Telecom Commission, Licence Agreement for Provision of Internet Service (including Internet Telephony)
↑ Schedule C, Section 1.12.9Archived 8 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine , Government of India, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Department of Telecommunications Telecom Commission, Licence Agreement for Provision of Internet Service (including Internet Telephony)
↑ CERT-IN "Charter and Mission", Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India
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