5/17/23, 10:44 PM OTF | The decentralised infrastructure of online censorship in Asia In India, this model has meant that ISPs are free to choose the technical methods of blocking. Our analysis (https://www.petsymposium.org/foci/2023/foci-2023-0006.pdf) of 9 million measurements contributed by 331 users from 25 states in India reveals that this implementation of censorship varies wildly across ISPs. The research revealed that different ISPs use different methods of blocking. This directly influences the right to freedom of expression in India, as the choice of technical methods dictates how easy or difficult circumventing such censorship is. Most ISPs still use the method of monitoring and filtering of HTTP requests. The more sophisticated method of blocking based on the Server Name Indication (SNI) present in HTTPS connections is only used by 16 networks. Much of this style of blocking is conducted by two large pan-India ISPs – Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. SNI-based blocking is difficult to evade for lay people without the use of circumvention tools or VPNs. Additionally, we found that many ISPs in India are using methods that do not allow for the presentation of censorship notices, thus making it difficult for them to distinguish between network failures and censorship, and impeding legal challenges to state action. ISPs in India also often end up blocking different websites – possibly due to expansive or incorrect interpretations of legal orders. For instance, we found that some ISPs were still blocking websites for longer durations than orders required them to, or were blocking websites that had been later ordered to be unblocked by the government. In this way, ISPs not only engage in blocking resources that should be legally accessible, but also violate net neutrality regulations. Another important aspect of online censorship are the procedural rights enshrined in law. In India, the law empowers a committee of government employees to send orders to ISPs. The law allows the executive to engage in censorship unilaterally – without any immediate parliamentary or judicial oversight, and the mandated confidentiality of such orders enables an opaque regime of censorship (https://scroll.in/article/953146/how-india-is-using-its-information-technology-act-to-arbitrarily-take-downonline-content). The only safeguard in the regulations is the requirement imposed on the government to contact affected content creators and website owners before any action is taken. However, our interviews (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4404965) with affected content creators and website owners – ranging from news publications to activists – empirically establish that the Government rarely implements this safeguard in practice. While many of the affected individuals and organisations we interviewed were well-known and their contact information easily available, most of them were not informed by the Government before or after their content was ordered to be blocked in India. The courts have also rarely stepped in as a correcting force even though the law suffers from constitutional infirmities, with the judiciary having never overturned any online censorship enacted by the Government of India. Amendments to the existing law or the introduction of new ones would ideally pave the way to remove the possibility of rights violations, but proposed legislation unfortunately retains the rights-infringing character of the present legal regime. For instance, in September 2022, the Department of Telecommunications released a draft Telecommunication Bill to replace colonial-era legislation that still regulates telecommunication in India. Amongst many other things, the new Bill will mandate a licensing regime (https://gurshabad.github.io/writing/Anunay_Kulshrestha-Gurshabad_GroverThis website deploys cookies for basic functionality and to keep it secure. These cookies are strictly necessary. Optional Comments_Telecommunication_Bill_2022.pdf) for all online communication services, and sanction state analysis cookies which provide us with statistical information about the use of the website may also be deployed, but only surveillance without accountability (https://www.lawfareblog.com/indian-telecommunication-bill-engenderswith your consent. Please review our Privacy & Data Policy (https://www.opentech.fund/about/tos/privacy/) for more security-and-privacy-risks). information. Your cookie settings Pakistan Decline Accept https://www.opentech.fund/news/the-decentralised-infrastructure-of-online-censorship-in-asia/ 2/5