Censorship

A few weeks ago I sounded off at a meeting of bloggers in Goa about how someone – either at Google or an outside hacker – had introduced hundreds of “robot.txt blocks” on my site.

These instruct search engines not to look at specific things you have written; in effect, they are censors.

In the last year, the number of robot.txt blocks on my site has climbed steadily and is now 791.

Meanwhile, the total number of urls from my site indexed by Google has fallen from about 800 to nearly half that figure, a sure sign of malign interference. (The total should only go up for it is cumulative.)

There has been a resounding lack of response to my appeals for help addressed to Google and the blogspot community.

One of the other participants at the meeting who seemed to have an inside track to Google expresssed interest in my predicament and I held out hope that something constructive would result.

Something has happened, but not what I hoped. 

The “Total Indexed” graph line no longer descends from 800; it now ascends from 0 to 512 on 1/6/13, peaks at 646 on 5/12/13, and then drops to the current 465.

Meanwhile, the graph line showing the number of urls “Ever Crawled” on my site  was at 717 when the “Total Indexed” is shown at 0, an obvious anomaly. (The "Ever Crawled" figure is now 807.)

The number of robot.txt blocks was 586 when the Total Indexed is shown at 0!

The mysterious statistical volatility on my site has not affected the selection of anodyne keywords Google uses as identifiers of my ever controversial blog. These are the top 20 keywords it associates with undiplomatictimes:

1. Indian (4 variants)

2. Post (3 variants)

3. January

4. February

5. World

6. March

7. November

8. British

9. New

10. December

11. Blog (4 variants)

12. August

13. Nations (3 variants)

14. Countries (3 variants)

15. United (2 variants)

16. China (3 variants)

17. April

18. Britain (2 variants)

19. Atom (2 variants)

20. June

In a certain twisted sort of way it is flattering that the high and the mighty, with all the resources of Western mass media at their command, should feel the need to censor my tiny voice. It can only be taken as signalling an intense insecurity.

Internet Censorship

Media reports invariably say that Union Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal’s meetings earlier this month with representatives of Facebook, Google and Microsoft were an “attempt” to censor the Internet. In fact, the government has gone well beyond that; the Internet is effectively being censored right now, and in ways that strike at the root of our democracy.

I can vouch for this from first-hand experience, for the problem of restricted access to this blog reported earlier seems to be rooted in the “Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011” the government published in April this year.

As Heather Timmons of The New York Times reported on 7 December, the Rules “require ‘intermediaries,’ companies like Facebook, Google and Yahoo … to respond quickly if individuals complain that content is ‘disparaging’ or ‘harassing,’ among other complaints. If the complainant’s claim is valid, these companies must take down the offensive information within 36 hours.”

Timmons cited an unpublished study by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore that concluded the Rules were already “chilling” free speech on the Internet in India. That finding was based on the responses of major Internet service providers to bogus notices sent by CIS claiming to be offended by third party content; in six of seven cases, the supposedly offensive pages were removed without question. One of the censored items was an entirely legitimate comment on a news report about the Telengana movement; the “intermediary” removed it as well as 14 other comments on the story.

In my case, the block has been on the entire blog as well as on several items critical of the mass media. Who asked for the restrictions remains a mystery; Google does not respond to emailed enquiries from lowly bloggers, so I have no quick way of finding out. My guess is that it is The Times of India, which has a track record of trying to stifle critical blogs.

The Rules that make this situation possible are broadly and badly phrased. Internet service providers are required to act on complaints that content is “harassing, blasphemous, defamatory” or “derogatory.” Content that “threatens … friendly relations with foreign States” or is “insulting any other nation” is likewise on the hit list. These are all grounds that in the normal course of law would require a judicial finding that weighs a set of complex factors. No procedure is set out to assess the legitimacy of a complaint. Nor is there a provision for the owner of the content to present a defence. In fact, there is none even requiring that the content owner be notified of the action.

As they stand, the April Rules are indefensible. Their ministerial promoters and apologists, sworn to uphold the Indian Constitution and the integrity of our democracy, should be ashamed of themselves.

A Creepy Crawly Feeling

A few days ago I finally figured out how to get Google Webmaster Tools to divulge traffic statistics about this blog, and made a rather unexpected discovery: someone is trying to block access to it.

A report I downloaded on 25 November said – if I am reading it right – that there had been 363 recent cases of “restricted by robots.txt,” “Not Found” responses had been returned five times, and “Unreachable” once.

That cleared up the mystery of the small “Web page cannot be found” sign that always floats over some part of my blog even when the page is open and readable. (I had paid it no attention, thinking it was caused by the slow speed of my Photon link,)

After some research I discovered that the “robots.txt” file is meant for outdated pages that site-owners do not want search engines to find. It is the Web equivalent of a No Entry sign; the page thus marked does not show up on keyword search results.

Who would want to block a private blog that is admittedly opinionated but hardly a threat to anyone?

I discovered a number of anomalies also on the www.undiplomatictimes.com website, which has of late been difficult to update because of what I had thought were technical glitches.

As Google's Blogger is beyond the reach of direct queries from users of its free services, I sent off an email message to the company in Goa, Netsparx, that has arranged for the hosting of undiplomatictimes.com. That was yesterday. No response yet, but I have a creepy crawly feeling that it won't be good when it comes.

If readers of this blog have any advise about what to do about this problem I would be grateful for advise to: papamenon04@yahoo.com.
  

India Needs its Own Google

Ever since I moved back to India after several decades in the United States, I've had a growing sense that Google discriminates against its clientele here.

Just as it worked with the Chinese government to censor the availability of information to the unfortunate citizens of that country, I think we are getting a screened access to the Worldwide Web. I doubt if this is at the request of the Indian government, so the conclusion is unavoidable that the corporation is doing this on its own, or at the request of some other power structure to which it is obedient.

After my last post predicting the current economic crisis, my searches have been even further circumscribed. Most links I click on in my gmail simply refuse to open. A curt message box tells me Internet Explorer has aborted the attempt to open the site.

If India is to maintain its political independence and freedom of action, it is essential that its citizens have untrammeled access to information. We should follow the Chinese example and set up our own search engine.

P.S. After posting this item I noticed that the "Google Buzz" icon that used to appear along with the Twitter and Facebook buttons at the end of each post had disappeared. Talk about information management!