On Wednesday, April 26, 2017, the Jammu and Kashmir Government directed Internet Service Providers to block access to 22 social media sites in the Kashmir Valley for up to one month. The move reportedlycame in the wake of widespread circulation of videos depicting abuse of Kashmiris by Indian military personnel, which fueled unrest in the Valley. As per orders issued by J&K’s Principal Home Secretary R K Goyal, the following list of 22 websites stands blocked for a period of one month or until further orders, whichever is earlier:
- Qzone
- Tumblr
- Google+
- Baidu
- Skype
- Viber
- Line
- Snapchat
- Telegram
- Snapfish
- YouTube (uploads)
- Vine
- Xanga
- Buzznet
- Flickr
The order, issued under Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 read with Rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951, noted that social media is increasingly being used by anti-national elements to disturb public order and tranquility, that such misuse of social media comes with no accountability on the part of the miscreants, that such incidents have been observed to cause large-scale damage to life and property, and that the use of these social media sites therefore needs to be immediately regulated/curbed.
