A threat from ISIL prompts India to block Github and a handful of other sites

The Indian government has apparently blocked a clutch of websites—including Github, the ubiquitous platform that software writers use for sharing and working on open-source code—because they were carrying “anti-India” content from ISIL (a.k.a. Islamic State or ISIS).

The video site Vimeo, text repository Pastebin.com, and web-hosting provider Weebly have also been affected.

Insane! Govt orders blocking of 32 websites including @internetarchive @vimeo @github @pastebin #censorship #FoEx pic.twitter.com/F75ngSGohJ

— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh_prakash) December 31, 2014

While Quartz hasn’t been able to verify the authenticity of the document above, almost every website on the list was unavailable early afternoon (local time) via at least two internet service providers.

And we weren’t the only ones.

@centerofright @pranesh_prakash @rsprasad @pierrefitter1 None of the websites in the list opening here.Checked through two ISP connections.

— DeshGujarat (@DeshGujarat) December 31, 2014

The government order doing the rounds on Twitter, if authentic, is dated Dec. 17.

Terror threat

The websites were blocked because they were allegedly carrying anti-India content and on the advice of India’s anti-terrorism squad, according to Arvind Gupta, the national head of the information technology cell at the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The websites that have been blocked were based on an advisory by Anti Terrorism Squad, and were carrying Anti India content from ISIS. 1/2

— Arvind Gupta (@buzzindelhi) December 31, 2014

The sites that have removed objectionable content and/or cooperated with the on going investigations, are being unblocked. 2/2

— Arvind Gupta (@buzzindelhi) December 31, 2014

Gupta clarified that he was speaking as a party representative.

The head of the Indian government’s department of electronics and information technology was not available for comment.

Earlier this month, India’s security agencies went into a tizzy after UK’s Channel 4 News revealed that a prominent ISIL Twitter handle was based out of Bangalore. The authorities moved swiftly to arrest a 24-year-old engineer, Mehdi Masroor Biswas, who had been operating the Twitter account since 2009.

Multiple sites

Pastebin.com—a text storage service—has been complaining since Dec. 19 that its site is inaccessible in India.

http://t.co/e3zRKnJJQO seems to have been blocked in India. If you are from India and unable to visit Pastebin, please email us.

— Pastebin.com (@pastebin) December 19, 2014

As has Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library.

@pranesh_prakash @Vimeo @github @pastebin We’ve received many complaints from people in India who can’t access http://t.co/rvOhn0KKJQ.

— Internet Archive (@internetarchive) December 31, 2014

Any difficulties in accessing Github are sure to be painful for India’s vast army of software developers, who power one of the bright spots of Indian’s struggling economy.

In a testament to Github’s importance, even China’s powerful censors were forced to unblock the site due to its importance for workers in the country’s tech industry.

But India isn’t alone—Russia also banned Github earlier this month.

This article is a part of Quartz India. For more, follow this link.

A threat from ISIL prompts India to block Github and a handful of other sites