India Government has taken steps to stop the rumours spreading through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter on North Eastern people being attacked, by directing Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) in India to disable all Inflammatory and hateful contents targeting North Eastern community hosted on websites. According to the latest report, Home Ministry has ordered ISP’s the country to block Twitter completely in 8 states which include Kerala, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. Govt faced lots of issues while blocking and removing contents from Twitter, as they didn’t respond in a timely manner.
“Twitter Inc may be directed to all traffic emanating from addresses in the states assessed by the Central Intelligence Agencies to be sensitive in the current prevailing situation in Kerala, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh,” official documents from Department of Electronics and IT (DEIT) said. This order has been conveyed to state-owned BSNL and other private owners which includes Tata Communications, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications as well as the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI).
Citing technical issues Telecom operators has refused to abide to the new order issued by the Home Ministry that sought to block Twitter traffic from 8 states. ISP’s have approached Department of Telecom (DOT) to check the technical feasibility of such a request on monitoring Twitter traffic.
The state-owned BSNL replied to this request as it is not possible to block website on circle basis and Reliance Communications said the blocking has to be at the gateway locations and can’t be made specific to area or state wise. Tata Communications in its reply said it does not allocate Internet Protocol Addresses to its customers on a state-wise basis. “Specific area wise/state wise blocking of website is technically not feasible. Idea and Bharti Airtel also said it’s not possible to block. ISPAI said “we would like to inform that it is technically not feasible to block website state wise.”
The Director of DoT Subodh Saxena said in his communication that “…in the present scenario that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) having majority of Internet subscribers have not allocated addresses area or state wise and it would not be possible for them at present to carry out specific area wise or state wise blocking of website.“
So currently Twitter is not yet blocked by Indian ISP’s but soon, Govt will force the telecom operator to find way’s to block the Twiter and other social media sites. Do comment your views.