The website was formed by members of the Sri Lankan Tamil community residing in the United States and publishes articles in English,[1] German and French.

[2] Tamilnet and non-governmental organizations such as Free Media Movement (FMM), Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and ARTICLE 19 confirm that the website is currently banned in Sri Lanka.

TamilNet was founded in 1995 by a group of Tamil diaspora professionals, including computer programmer K. Jayachandran from Norway, a systems analyst from the UK and several “dotcom” entrepreneurs from the United States to counter what they thought was a biased Western press coverage of the Sri Lankan conflict.

[1] According to ARTICLE 19, a global human rights organization with a specific mandate and focus on the defense and promotion of freedom of expression and freedom of information worldwide, the news website although some claim it has an LTTE bias, it has over its ten-year life span, earned a reputation for providing alternative news and opinions with a particular focus on the North and East of the country, operating under the banner of "Reporting to the World on Tamil Affairs".

According to V. Sambandan, Sri Lanka Special Correspondent for the Indian English daily The Hindu, "facts and figures are double sourced, checked and are considered 100% credible".

[13] It has been alleged that members associated with various Sri Lankan political parties have threatened reporters of TamilNet with arrest for "treason", and once hinted, that "uncontrolled extremists might be inspired to perform some extra-judicial killing".

The accused who is an ex-member of Eelam People's Democratic Party (EDPD) headed by cabinet minister Douglas Devananda, a coalition member of many ruling alliances, has been absconding since his bailout.

[18] Currently a former member of the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), a minor political organization and a known paramilitary group[19] has been accused in the murder.

The FMM stresses that the danger of censoring the web & Internet is that it gives a Government and State agencies with no demonstrable track record of protecting & strengthening human rights and media freedom flimsy grounds to violate privacy, curtail the free flow of information and restrict freedom of expression"[27]When questioned by reporters, Government Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said he was not aware of the shutdown but, "We are looking for hackers to disable the Tamilnet but could not find anyone yet.