Github and Dailymotion among 32 websites blocked for ISIS propaganda

Vimeo.com, dailymotion.com, pastebin.com and github.com are just some of the names of the websites that the government has blocked to try and curb the propaganda that the ISIS is trying to spread.

Anonymous India, a “hacktivist” group threatened to fight back against this decree. The websites that did remove all of the objectionable content had been unblocked by Wednesday evening.

On December 17, a telecom order instructed all of the internet service licensees to block these websites. When contacted, the director of the CERT – IN (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) Dr. Gulshan Rai did confirm the same.

This was implemented after a order to do the same was issued by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Mumbai.

Arif Majeed, an ISIS recruit, was interrogated by the Anti – Terrorism Squad (ATS) which later approached the judiciary. Mehdi Biswas, from Bengaluru, was recently arrested for spreading the ISIS propaganda.

Rai said that these blocked websites had content which encouraged the youth of the country to join ISIS. Although these websites were asked to remove the content, it was initially being ignored. The websites which have agreed to work with the government has been unblocked.

The online community opposed such a move by the government and the tech community opposed the ban on Github.com which was basically only a video sharing website.

A lot of the users of the of these websites were visibly upset and took to twitter to make their voices heard with some even comparing a move like this to be similar to something that Pakistan would carry out.