And guess what? Fixed without the help of the ACLU. One would have thought the ACL-f'ing-U would have stood up for the freedom of speech of the Band of the Banned, but, alas, we were neither liberal wackjobs nor terrorists. Just some people who know how to photoshop.
(From the International Herald Tribune) After two days of angry inquiries and charges of government censorship, the Indian government took a step towards explaining a mysterious block to personal blogs, calling it "a technological error" that would be repaired soon.
In an e-mail sent early Thursday an official at the Consulate General of India in New York said the order to block a handful of Web sites, including the popular blogspot.com, which hosts thousands of personal blogs, had been prompted by the discovery of a Web site that contained what the official called "two impertinent pages" rife with material that contained "extremely derogatory references to Islam."
So which is it? A technological error, are a purposeful blockade? The two impertinet pages were the Flush The Koran project.
Anyhow, if you read the rest of the article from the Herald Trib, you will see that the government is all over the place in explaining this away.
Looking at sitemeter, I am getting some hits from India. Could be unblocked or just smart, savvy techy people :)
Anyhow, this document shows it was not a technological error (via Macker):
Click for full size
Doesn't look like a mistake to me.
Anyhow, there is a nice article about this in the San Jose Mercury News, which, unfortunately, uses my real name. Oh, well.
Miss Beth mentions how the Indian gov't is having problems controlling its extremist population, leading to censorship. Check it out.
Update, 6:10pm: apparently, not unbanned.
Banned Update…
The reaction to the banning of not only this site and the sixteen other sites (three of which show up as not found)…but also any and all sites located on Typepad, GeoCities, and Blogspot…is growing worldwide, resulting in some fast backtracking by …
I just received an e-mail from an Indian netizen that says several of us are still blocked. Trying to nail it down…
The longer it goes on, the more exposure ;)
Actually I have several hundred hits from India during the “ban”. “Pjk” and “Anonomouse” to name a few have effectively circumvented the “ban” and allowed Indians to access our sites no problemo.
You actually got back with the Mercury? I purposefully didn’t respond simply because I knew they couldn’t be trusted with my name.
traderbob,
I suspect we’ll still be banned. That was a pretty detailed list. The Karnival of the Koran Krapping is definitely what did it, but do you think they caved because they were “directed” to by their terrorist overlords?
I probably should have asked Miss Ha not to use my real name in the article, but I was a little pressed for time, had to go to a meeting. Ce la vi.
I just saw that Mercury News article. Yeah, never give your real name to the press. They WILL print it, no matter what.
Congrats on the banning! I can’t even get a fatwa.
Nothing that a good photoshopping can’t cure, Ogre ;)