Et tu, India?

The blogosphere has been afire the past two days with the word that India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has created a list of “offensive” websites and caused the major ISPs to block these sites. There was no advisory to this effect, no public communication as to the DoT’s intentions and rationale, nothing of the sort. This would have been bad enough. Interestingly, however, whether due to technical incompetence or intent, not only were single pages blocked but entire blogger platforms such as blogspot.com, TypePad.com and Geocities.com were shut down. Now the government had gone too far. And this in the wake of the positive role played by bloggers during the recent bombings in Mumbai. A furor instantly erupted both within and without India, and sites such as Blogging Without Censorship emerged to take a leadership role in helping native bloggers deal with the ban. We’ll see how long the DoT can hold out under relentless pressure from the angry, infantalized masses that don’t want to suffer the same fate as their peers in China and Pakistan.

An interesting implication of these draconian steps to control citizen journalism is that the material being published is either (a) impactful, (b) newsworthy or (c) both. India is a democratic nation, yet is clearly concerned about the free flow of ideas across the internet. China, for all its economic might, is deeply afraid of losing control of its transition from an isolated, socialist state to a leader in the global economy and a true diplomatic superpower. While the steps taken by these countries to control free speech and the free flow of ideas are deeply unfortunate, it is a powerful validation of the blogger as a vehicle for idea creation, dissemination and change. It is also amazing to witness how people within these countries adapt to restrictions unthinkable in the U.S., whether using offshore means to create and distribute content, understanding the way the censors operate and getting “borderline” content posted on bulletin boards like the Chinese BBS or starting a censorship blog with a “how to” list to work-around the ban in India.

Governments can try and use regulation to keep people and ideas down for a time, but inevitably fissures will form, cracks will emerge and people will be heard. Just like the unstoppable trend of more and better content being made available on the internet, people who want a voice will have a voice and, if others want to hear them, will be heard.