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This is a thread about how the world’s largest democracy shuts down its internet, the subject of our newest Deep Tech podcast episode.
Hint: A 135-year-old law gives India the legal power to do it. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/02/1007916/podcast-india-internet-shutdowns/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1599240699
Hint: A 135-year-old law gives India the legal power to do it. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/02/1007916/podcast-india-internet-shutdowns/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1599240699
In the past few years, India has imposed hundreds of internet blackouts. The government claims they’re necessary for keeping the peace, particularly in areas like Kashmir, where there are regular outbreaks of violence. But…
Take an internet blackout in December. @soniafaleiro explains how a government-forced outage across large parts of Delhi coincided with protests against a new citizenship law that critics say discriminates against Muslims.
India is the world’s largest democracy by population, but it’s been imposing these internet shutdowns dozens of times each year for the past few years. To do so, it invokes a law called the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885.
There are major problems with the law, which we discuss in greater detail in the podcast episode. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/02/1007916/podcast-india-internet-shutdowns/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1599240699
But there have been cases where communications were shut down to prevent the spread of violence. You may have heard of the WhatsApp murders: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/18/technology/whatsapp-india-killings.html
India has a genuine online misinformation problem, partly because hundreds of millions of Indians—many of whom had no computer literacy before 2016—suddenly gained access to the internet that year.
The longest internet blackout in India—for a period of about six months— was in Kashmir. When the courts told the government in January that it had to lift the ban, it throttled connectivity speeds back to 2G. This has dealt a major blow to Kashmir’s economy.
It’s also been disastrous for Kashmir’s response to the pandemic. In the episode, we speak with a urologist at a public hospital there who describes trying to practice medicine in Kashmir with low connectivity speeds as “being lost at sea without radio.”
A government-sponsored, online-based health care system that granted free insurance to Indians living below the poverty line was also no longer accessible during Kashmir’s internet shutdown.
Omar says he saw a humanitarian crisis quickly unfolding. So he took his message to a local press colony. After speaking to the media for about five minutes, he was arrested and briefly jailed.
Because Omar is a physician and an online teacher, he was able to afford installing a broadband, fiber optic internet connection to his home. He says many less-fortunate others in Kashmir are stuck with throttled 2G speeds.
You just listened to excerpts from the latest episode of our Deep Tech podcast, hosted by @glichfield and produced by @AnthonyGrreen. LISTEN to the full episode here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/02/1007916/podcast-india-internet-shutdowns/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1599240699
