The Indian government has admitted to have blocked 245 web pages with inflammatory and hateful content, following the exodus of a large number of people belonging to the North Eastern ethnic community from cities like Bangalore and Pune, among others. Interestingly, the government has also pointed towards the involvement of a neighboring country (Pakistan), in its statement. What the Indian Government has done - Asked all intermediaries including national and international social networking sites, to disable inflammatory and hateful content including morphed images and videos, 'aimed at targeting people of North East', hosted on their websites. This is via an advisory issued by the Department of Electronics & Information Technology 17th August 2012. - Called a meeting of the representatives of international social networking sites based in India and advised them to take all possible action to disable the content. The government has also enforced section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000 to block web pages through intermediaries. - Issued orders directing intermediaries including international social networking sites to block 76 web pages on 18th August 2012, 80 web pages on 19th August 2012 and 89 web pages on 20th August 2012. - Asked intermediaries (which includes ISPs) and international social networking sites were to provide registration details and access logs of users who have uploaded the inflammatory content. Foreign Hand, Says One Social Networking site The government also claims that the initial response from international social networking sites points towards the involvement of Pakistan, as one intermediary social networking site has…
