As we know, under Indian Constitution Law section 69A (The Information Technology Act, 2000), the Indian Government can ban any App or Website in India. Chinese apps have been blocked several times over the past year. It’s now Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram’s turn. Today our discussion involves the INDIAN government’s censorship of the Internet in India.
In February 2021, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MEITy) granted social media platforms a grace period of three months to comply with the new IT regulations. 25th May is the last day for all social media platforms.
The Government can also take legal action against any social media platforms if they fail to accept these guidelines.
Okay, so that’s the story. Now the question is how does the Indian Government censor the Web? You’ve come to the right place if you’re searching for the answer.
Also Read: How to Open Blocked Sites?
Internet Censorship Technologies
Let’s review the various forms of Internet censorship:
DNS Tampering
DNS is an acronym for Domain Name System. Every device connected to the internet has an IP address. Likewise, every site has its own IP address. But it’s difficult to remember every site’s IP address. Because of this, DNS providers across the Internet provide their service.
It is a common technique to block access to sites. In this type, the DNS resolver ‘lies’ and returns the wrong IP address to the client. This type is the same as DNS Hijacking. Blocking requests are handled by ISPs (internet service providers).
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IP Blocking
Any website’s IP address can be blocked if Internet Service Providers employ this technique. Your ISP monitors your request for access to a site, and if the requested IP address belongs to the blacklist, they block your access.
Keyword Filtering
Keyword Filtering is another way to censor the web. It is common practice for social media sites to censor content with this technique. For example, Google.cn(Chinese version of Google) agreed to filter certain keywords given to it by the Chinese government in January 2006.
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SNI Based Blocking
The vast majority of Indian ISPs use SNI Injection to censor the web. The SNI extension for TLS (formerly known as SSL) allows multiple websites to be hosted on a single HTTPS server. SNI is unfortunately transmitted in cleartext, so network operators can not only see the websites you’re visiting but also can censor the web.
Also Read: How to Use TikTok after Ban without VPN?
Conclusion
Internet censorship commonly involves DNS tampering, IP blocking, SNI Based Blocking, and keyword filtering. I hope this article will help you a lot. Feel free to share this article with friends if you found it beneficial.
