Outraged Internet users from New Delhi to Silicon Valley are blasting India's government for shutting off access to millions of blogs, drawing comparisons of the world's largest democracy to the authoritarian censorship of China and Iran.
``A lot of people are saying, `Wait a minute. This can't be happening in India. China, yes. Pakistan, understandable','' said Fremont blogger Sabahat Ashraf, who has several blogs that attract readers from India but now can't be read in India. ``People are startled and distressed.''
Other Silicon Valley bloggers are baffled and angry over India's ban in recent days of blogs hosted by popular services used by Americans. The ban of 17 blogs and Web sites, which the government claimed fanned religious hatred, was unintentionally extended to millions of blogs when some of India's Internet service providers blocked entire domain names, instead of just the specific sites. Banned domains include Google's Blogger, Yahoo's GeoCities and Six Apart's TypePad services.
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Surprisingly, almost half of the original sites the Indian government ordered blocked are operated by conservative American bloggers who write about the Mideast and the Iraq war but who don't get much readership in India...
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