Digital Censorship

A leak of more than 100,000 files shows Chinese firm Geedge Networks exporting Tiangou Secure Gateway-national-scale filtering and tracking tech-now active in Pakistan and Myanmar

With nearly 1 billion internet users, the stakes are high in a sprawling country of many ethnic and religious communities where fake news risks stirring deadly strife

The Centre has strongly objected to social media platform X's characterisation of the 'Sahyog' portal as a censorship tool, calling the claim both unfortunate and condemnable. In a detailed response submitted before the Karnataka High Court, the Centre countered the claims made by X Corp in its petition challenging India's information-blocking framework. The government asserted that the petitioner had misinterpreted the provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act, particularly Sections 69A and 79(3)(b). X Corp has argued that Section 79(3)(b) does not authorise the government to issue content-blocking orders in a manner that bypasses the safeguards outlined in Section 69A, its corresponding blocking rules, and the Supreme Court's ruling in the Shreya Singhal case. However, the government contended that Section 69A explicitly allows the Centre to issue blocking orders under specific conditions and provides multiple safeguards for online content restriction. It stated that thi

Referring to the investigation and committee set up to look into the government censorship, Mark Zuckerberg said, 'We produced all these documents and it's all in the public domain'

The policy also asks for altered media depicting a realistic event that allegedly occurred, but that is not a true image, video, or audio recording of the event, to be disclosed

X, formerly known as Twitter, in July 2022 sought to overturn some government orders to remove content from its platform, without specifying which

TikTok announced that it has expanded its 'audience controls' feature to allow creators to restrict their short-form videos to adult viewers

Under the IT rules that came into effect in May last year, large digital platforms (with over five million users) have to publish periodic compliance reports every month

Since streaming video had no constraints, it offered storytellers phenomenal creative freedom. That is what got in the viewers, got them to subscribe and kept them there

On November 9, the Cabinet Secretariat issued a notification that brings digital and online media within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting

The feud can have implications for freedom of speech

On a plea by senior lawyer Sanjay Hegde, Justice Navin Chawla issued notices to the ministry and the social media giant and listed the matter for further hearing on Feb 11

Blocking a website is like trying to stop lots of trucks from delivering a banned book