Chinmayi  🏳️‍🌈

Given the region and its complexity it is very hard to speak of the complete extent of censorship. But this work tries to highlight many of the issues in Manipur. I looked at censorship in Manipur through OONI network measurements and Interviews with the people of Manipur.

I sought out to enquire about the censorship variance if any across different regions. Our analysis indicated that the censorship does not vary across different regions, instead they varied across ISPs. In our analysis we detected block pages for 167 URLs in India across 5 ISPs.

Most of the blocked URLs were blogs, file-sharing sites, or media websites. Interestingly, block pages were primarily served only for specific articles or pages, as opposed to blocking access to entire websites. I thank @hellais and @agrabeli_ for the support during this analysis

I was also wondering if the websites and blogs which are used to share information about manipur received any kind of censorship. Through this study we found no blocking of these sites from the tests we did.

We did however find that many womxn in Manipur practice self-censorship to avoid conflict. Engaging in socio-political conversations and mobilizing for political activism online, have led to severe offline consequences for womxn in the state.

One could say offline consequences for online actions have had a chilling effect on the freedom of expression. I also looked at freedom of the press in the region. My interviews revealed that the members of the press experience various forms of censorship and control.

Several members of the press have faced defamation suits, received informal takedown requests and have been caught in between the state and non state actors. Reinforcing the issues highlighted by organisations such as @pressfreedom.

Manipur has experienced a high number of shutdowns @NetShutdowns indicates 6 shutdowns since 2012. The findings from my interviews show that womxn experienced a loss of professional standing and issues of mental health due to these shutdowns. #keepiton

Critically, interviewees also raised concerns about the need for such shutdowns. I had previously examined the effect of shutdowns on women in the region with “Of seiges and shutdowns” and some of the findings of that report by @bachchaoproject overlapped with my findings now.

In conclusion my work shows there are many indications of indirect censorship leading to the many unspoken thoughts for the womxn of Manipur.