The Indian government has begun blocking porn sites from the country’s Internet users. The blocking started early this weekend with reports from Indian news outlets and users discussing the matter before official word was given. The government instructed Indian ISP’s Vodafone, MTNL, ACT, Hathway and BSNL to begin blocking porn sites on Saturday.
“Certain websites have been reviewed and found to be spreading anti-social activities as hyperlinks from these websites, some of them were pornographic, so we have sent letters to internet service providers to block them. The action has been taken in reference to section 79 of IT Act,” the sources said.
Information technology secretary RS Sharma told HT that the ministry “followed court directives,” a reference to an ongoing case in the Supreme Court against adult websites.
Indian citizens angry about their websites being taken offline from their view took to social media to complain about the situation. According to the porn site “Pornhub,” India has some of the most “prolific consumers” of pornography and the country accounts for 40% of its traffic. Apparently there has been a movement in India against pornographic websites.
A section of activists have been campaigning for a ban on internet pornography, especially sites with abusive and child pornography, while others consider the move a brazen attack on individual freedom. There is also a strong debate on whether watching violent and fetishist porn encourages violence against women and sexism.
It’s interesting that the government is taking such a stance when it doesn’t seem any laws have been broken. In a similar story the UK prime minister may be waging his own porn war in that country.
[button link=”http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/ban-on-porn-govt-blocks-800-adult-websites-more-under-review/article1-1375794.aspx” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: HindustanTimes[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
