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Indian government slammed over social networks shut off

Angry response to blocks on 32 popular sites

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The Indian government has blocked access to a range of websites
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Confusion has greeted the Indian government's decision to block 32 popular internet sites in an attempt to quell the promotion of "jihadi activities".

The Indian Ministry for Communication and Information Technology confirmed the action to the BBC, explaining that the local department of telecoms had already removed blocks on four sites that had been affected.

The blocked sites that are now back are Weebly, Vimeo, Daily Motion and Github, suggesting that the government is targeting a mix of pages. Others, notably Pastebin, remain unavailable.

Vimeo told the BBC that it removes content likely to promote terrorism when it finds it, but that it did not have any approach from India before its services were blocked.

"It is Vimeo's long-standing policy not to allow videos that promote terrorism, and we remove such videos whenever we become aware of them," said a spokesperson.

"We have not received notice from the Indian government concerning such videos and have contacted them requesting the blocking order to identify and evaluate the video in question."

A list of the sites has been shared online by the Centre for Internet & Society's policy director, Pranesh Prakash. It shows that the Internet Archive has also been targeted.

The Internet Archive confirmed in a response to a tweet from Prakash that it has experienced problems at its end.

The BBC report suggests that access to the sites was blocked following concerns that anti-establishment actors were using them to publicise their campaigns and encourage "jihad" behaviour.

"It was stated that anti-national groups are using social media for mentoring Indian youths to join the Jihadi activities," said a spokesperson for the Indian government in a statement.

Other sites will be unblocked if they adhere to the "law of the land", the statement added. India committed recently to closing the country's digital divide.

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