The ire of hacktivist group Anonymous that was directed at the government over blocking of sites like vimeo.com and Pirate Bay may not have been justified - the ban on these sites, in fact, was not ordered by the Department of Telecommunications.
In response to a RTI query made by the Delhi-based Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), the department replied, “As per available information no blocking instruction to block websites like Pirate-bay and Vimeo etc. has been issued by the Department of Telecommunications to Internet Service Providers (sic).”
The revelation by the department assumes significance since most of the anger of groups like Anonymous had been directed against it, particularly over these two sites.
On June 9, countrywide protests were organised by Anonymous. Dressed in black and wearing Guy Fawkes masks, about 100 people staged a demonstration at the city’s Azad Maidan in protest against the Union government’s internet policies. The Indian wing of the group was created in the backdrop of the recent outrage over the IT Act Intermediaries Rules and blocking of sites.
SFLC itself does not want to hazard a guess on who ordered the blocks, but falls back on reports to conjecture that these might have been carried out by ISPs to comply with interim injunctions styled as John Doe orders issued by the Chennai High Court in response to a suit filed by producers of the Tamil film ‘3’, arguably better known for its chartbuster ‘Kolaveri’.
SFLC counsel Prasanth Sugathan said it did not matter so much who had handed out the orders. “It is the issues raised that are important. One should not lose sight of core issues (that of internet freedom),” he said. SFLC, among other things, works towards protecting digital freedoms.
Vimeo.com, Pirate Bay and a other sites continue to be blocked across many ISPs for over a month now. According to SFLC, the error message shown on trying to access the blocked sites on the Airtel network was, “This website/URL has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to Court orders or on the Directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications.”
It was this ambiguous message that prompted SFLC to file a RTI application on May 14. The department’s reply was dated June 6.
Irrespective of who has ordered the blocks, these are not being implemented uniformly. Mohammed Farhan, a Bangalore-based student, shared, “The ban on torrent sites is mainly with national ISPs such as Airtel, Idea, MTS, Reliance and Tata Photon. On other ISPs such as BSNL, ACT Broadband and Tikona Broadband, torrents work without problems. We have tried proxy servers to download films, but even those don’t work.”
ISPs, for their part, are reluctant in parting with the break-up of sites that have been have been blocked on orders of either the DOT or various courts. A spokesperson of Airtel, one of the largest ISPs in the country, simply said, “Access to certain sites has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to court orders or on the directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications.”
Meanwhile, the ban continues.
