The Madras High Court on Wednesday ordered the Indian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to the popular Internet Archive. The court order listed it to be blocked along 2,650 websites, including cloud file-sharing portals.
The BBC reported that the petitioners, makers of the movies Lipstick under my Burkha and Jab Harry met Sejal, two recent Bollywood releases pleaded to the court to restrict access to websites that were allegedly hosting pirated copies of the films.
The fact that the Internet Archive had been blocked first came to light on Tuesday. By Wednesday, speculation was rife that the government had restricted access to it. Interestingly, the most popular aspect of the archive is the Wayback Machine, a utility that allows users to see older versions of the same website. The Wayback Machine is popular with fact checkers and researchers.
This isn’t the first time users in India have been restricted from accessing the Internet Archive. In late 2014, the government blocked access to it, and several other websites on fears they were hosting anti-India propaganda by the ISIS; access was restored in early 2015.
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