Website blocking orders grew hundredfold in 10 years, says RTI response

The increase in blocking orders has coincided with a massive uptick in Internet use; DoT seeks easier portal blocking

Website blocking orders have grown over hundredfold from 2013 to most of 2023, according to a Right to Information (RTI) response obtained by Bihar-based activist Kanhaiya Kumar. Mr. Kumar obtained statistics on website and online post blocking orders issued under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The Union government issued 62 such orders in 2013, and last year it issued 6,954 such orders till October. This comes even as the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) directed Internet service providers (ISPs) to compile Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of servers in India, so as to facilitate blocking them quickly.

The increase in blocking orders has coincided with a massive uptick in Internet use, specifically since mobile data prices fell dramatically in 2016 following the launch of Reliance Jio. The data also reflect blocking orders sent to social media and content firms for specific pages, profiles and videos; however, the IT Ministry refused to provide a breakdown of these statistics, citing confidentiality clause in the blocking rules.

Much of the webpages blocked are likely to be individual posts, videos or profiles — in 2022, the Union government said in response to a parliamentary query, 228 websites were blocked. When other orders, such as those sent directly to social media and online content providers, are factored in, the number for that year is 6,775.

Section 69A of the IT Act allows the Union government to block content online in the “interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence.”

List of IP addresses

The DoT, in its communication in December, ordered Internet service providers and telcos to prepare a list of IP addresses in use in India to make it easier to block websites which are based in India. “Location of web / application servers need to be traced on immediate basis as and when required or in case they are not complying with the laws of the land or they are required to be blocked as per [court orders], etc.,” the DoT said In a December 20, 2023 order.

Two persons with experience in how ISPs are run said these rules might be impractical and difficult to implement. “The scale of this ask is enormous,” said Deepak Maheshwari, former secretary at the ISP Association of India. IP addresses are often purchased in bulk by data centre providers and web hosting firms, and these entities may have corporate security concerns on having these IP addresses declared to ISPs, he said. 

Another industry expert with over a decade of experience in Internet networking technologies, who did not want to be named, said website blocking had become much harder due to evolutions in the encryption technologies used by web browsers and firms, increasingly blurring the level of visibility that Internet providers have on their users’ activity. 

“A single IP address can be linked to thousands of websites,” the expert said. “Telecom operators are just ‘dumb pipes,’” he added. If the DoT wanted more convenience in blocking websites, he suggested, they would have to collaborate with content delivery networks (CDNs) who actually distribute much of the Internet’s content, such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Cloudflare.