Robert Scoble Makes Inane “Sucks” Comment on India

Indian government found out certain blog sites (most likely blogger blogs) were used by terrorists who are responsible for Mumbai blasts which killed several hundred people. They instructed the ISP’s to block those sites. Anything wrong with this picture?

Our ISP’s in infinite wisdom decides to block entire blogspot domain. That’s all it takes for few bloggers like Robert Scoble and Ethan Zuckerman to overreact:
Ethan Zuckerman asks: “Quick - what do India, Pakistan, China and Ethiopia have in common?

It’s not a love of cricket. Or clandestine nuclear arms programs. Or even a fondness for flatbread.

They’re all - apparently - blocking blogspot.com.”

That’s pretty cute Ethan. So tell me?
What’s common with Bush & Osama?

They both kill thousands of innocent people. Both think they are guided by God.

Scoble says: “This sucks. Not sure what we can do.” He continues, “But, one thing it does is guarantees that America will have a steady flow of immigrants for a long time to come. ”

Frankly I think what “sucks” is the overreaction of certain blogger’s. Terrorism knows no bounds. Every effort must be taken to stop them at all costs to prevent further 9/11 or Mumbai or London blasts.

If you are desperate to access blogspot blogs then you have scores of proxies available. As far as I am concerned I am willing to forego accessing them if that helps makes my country even .01 % more secure.

It would be utterly stupid for anyone to migrate because they cannot access blogspot. I will leave it at that.

Several viewers of Scoble’s blog have explained the situation to Scoble very patiently. What I at least expected was some sort of understanding of the situation. Let’s look at few comments from his blog:

I have been following your blog for a while. I am hurt by the way you have compared china and pakistan with india for blocking a certain websites. I think india is one of biggest democratic country on this earth. Iam sure that any country which has to go through with the bomb blasts which rocked one of the great cities like mumbai will act to stop rumors and other mischiefs. Iam sure that these kind of things have had happened in any other part of world, then that country had gone to extremes. I think indian govt. wanted to block some blogs not whole of bloggers, and they know that there are ways to spread all kind of info other that blogs. so please dont compare india with any other not so democratic country.

Comment by patriot — July 18, 2006 @ 12:20 am

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> This sucks. Not sure what we can do.

In short cooperate

Convince Bush & Co. (Condi etc.) to stop aiding countries which actively sponsor terrorism. The same terrorists who target’s India also targets US, UK and other countries of the world. Let the war against terrorism be truly without boundaries.
Comment by Angsuman Chakraborty — July 18, 2006 @

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Robert, first up - the Indian government wants ISPs to block certain sites only but the ISPs have taken up to block the entire top level domain. If you read one of the links Brajesh mentioned, an official claims that the list of sites runs 22 pages, I’m guessing that they cannot be top level domains but specific sites only. That may also explain why some other blogging platforms like Wordpress are still accessible.
Supporting Mihir, I do not understand how you conclude that blogs being blocked or any sites being blocked will encourage people to immigrate - they’d be intelligent enough to use proxies like most of them are doing so now.
Comment by Mithun — July 18, 2006 @ 12:12 pm

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Now that the bans are lifted by some ISPs in India, let me give some more food for thought. Read this:

What is common between U.S. Army and Al-qaeda? They both kill people! This sucks. Not sure what we can do about this?

Did this sound cliche? This is how baseless the comments were. The questions is - what is the motive? If you remove motive from the action, the actions sound equivalent. The motive of U.S. army is to curtail terror, while that of Al-Qaeda is to spread terror - NOW that sounds better, doesn’t it?

Similarly, the motive of the Indian government was to curb terrorists group from communicating. That does NOT suck. If the motive was to curtail freedom of speech and open dialog, that would suck. China, apparently does not allow blog sites to disallow open dialog (I can not personally speak for Pakistan, since I do not know). So blocking blogspot is just as common between India and China, as killing people is between U.S. and Al-Qaeda - you make the distinction.

Comment by Mihir Gandhi — July 19, 2006 @ 8:30 am

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**** Please read ****

Government issued statement that particular blogs are being kept under survillence as Mumbai incident creators used this mode of communication (so Govt says). The whole problem erupted when Govt instructed ISPs to monitor and identify physically the location of people accessing the specific blogs. ISPs in turn blocked all the blogs under blogspot.com instead of ones specifically. Why blame the Govt if our own IT guys played black hand. When things were sorted out, most of the blogs under blogspot.com came out of ban. When media asked aboutwhich blogs are banned/kept under survillence, Govt refused citing people accessing will be forewarned. Makes sense it to me. I am willing to give up my freedom for few days. Atleast its not censorship or heavy handedness in my humble view.

Comment by jamram82 — July 19, 2006 @ 8:56 am

They said it much better than I could.

Update: It appears now, contrary to earlier media reports, Indian government had much more mundane reasons for blocking the 17 sites -
1. To appease Muslims by blocking anti-Muslim sites
2. To appease Muslims & Christians(?) by blocking pro-Hindu sites and Hindu human rights sites
3. To appease leader of the ruling party by blocking anti-Sonia Maino site
4. To appease an ally to the ruling coalition by banning anti-leftist site

My indignation on Scoble & Ethan yesterday was based on four factors as I commented on Ethan’s blog today:

First was overlooking the fact that it was only few contentious sites which were instructed to be blocked and not the whole of blogspot. With widespread availability of proxies no hell was going to break loose. There is a different angle to this which is free speech issue which I will address later.

Second was equating India with China, Pakistan or Ethiopia. With all her faults I think India has much better record at maintaining human rights of citizens. Even that didn’t bother me much as much as comparison with Pakistan, a country whose leaders have been continuously supporting terrorist activities in India for decades. The wound of Mumbai blasts is way too raw still.

The third reason is something more personal. During last US elections lots of American’s were not in favor of Bush coming to power. They lost and apologized to the world and said they tried. In short often you may not agree with the government of your country and its policies. There are many American’s who don’t like Bush. They realize Bush’s policies are not often in sync with the ethos and passion of America as they have come to know and believe.
Similarly there are many in India who don’t like the current Indian government lead by Mrs. Sonia Maino. And yet they are helpless to do much about it. India is very dear to them. They realize the government’s policies are often against the basic values of what they have come to know and love about India. Hence equating India with the current Indian government is very painful to them. To many an outsider, Bush represents America, not to me as I have stayed there for a long period and love the country as my second home. Similarly to outsider’s Indian government does represent India. To us it is rather painful to see them equated.

And fourthly it was my understanding at that time from media reports and other blogs that the cause of block was certain sites which allowed terrorist communications. Despite my disagreements I would strongly support any measure which deter terrorists not only in India but anywhere in the world.

Ethan> While many commentators - myself included - believed the blocks were in reaction to the Mumbai train attacks, that’s proven not to be true.

Same here. In fact the initial media reports indicated the same. As it turned out Indian government was blocking some anti-muslim and some pro-Hindu sites and some sites with no content when I viewed.

In the current scenario I find no justification of the block at all. If there can be riot in any community merely because some website flushes some scripture then such people first needs to be educated and the government. So I posted an article today on how to easily defeat website access ban, specifically with India in mind. To reiterate the given cause for ban is totally unjustified and needs to be repelled.