India blocks more than 250 Web sites for inciting hate, panic

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/india-blocks-more-than-250-web-sites-for-inciting-hate-panic/2012/08/20/aee0b846-eadf-11e1-866f-60a00f604425_story.html

India blocked about 250 Web sites and social networking sites Monday, accusing them of spreading inflammatory content that triggered panic among thousands of workers and students from the country’s eight northeastern states last week.

The government’s blame list ranged from Facebook to fundamentalist Pakistani sites, Twitter to text messages, and Google to YouTube videos. Authorities also barred the sending of text messages to more than five people at a time for two weeks.

Thousands of people from northeastern India fled several cities in the south and west of the country last week after text messages circulated warning that they faced reprisal attacks from Muslims over recent ethnic clashes in the northeastern state of Assam.