Just saw what India actually banned online and it's way more than I thought

I was reading through the Indian government's IT Rules 2021 list and found out they've banned over 200 websites in the last 2 years for things like 'national security' but most of them were just news orgs or activist pages. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) had a report saying India blocked 45,000 URLs just in 2023 alone. That number blew my mind because you never hear about it in US news. Anyone else keep tabs on how many sites their own country blocks?

2 comments

2 Comments

richardknight1d ago

Yeah that 45,000 URL number is wild. I remember reading something from the Internet Freedom Foundation that said India blocked over 2,500 YouTube videos in just the first few months of 2023, mostly for "misinformation" but a lot of them were just regular news clips from outlets that don't align with the government. It's scary how easy it is to disappear content without most people even noticing.

johnthompson1d ago

Laughing at myself here because I'm the guy who still clicks "do not sell my info" on every cookie popup like it matters. @richardknight you're right, the India stat is nuts. I remember a local news channel here got slapped for airing a politician's old speech where he said something that aged badly. They called it "misinformation" but really the guy just embarrassed himself. So they buried the clip. Makes you wonder what else gets wiped that nobody backs up.