Several pornography web sites are currently inaccessible in India on several internet service providers (ISPs).
According to a thread on discussion site and social network Reddit, several of the most popular porn sites are not accessible in India on internet connections provided by MTNL Mumbai, BSNL, Vodafone and ACT are either showing blank pages when connecting to pornography sites, or “Directory doesn't exist”.
One user reported that “It says the site has been blocked by the 'Competent Authority'”.
However, users on Airtel and Tikona, and one BSNL Delhi user reported that all sites could be accessed normally.
Update, 2 August: ISP confirms: Gov’t ordered block of 857 porn sites invoking section 69A, Shreya Singhal’s IT Act leftover
Legally India has confirmed that on one Delhi broadband connection provided by Spectranet, 11 out of the world’s 13 most popular porn sites (according to this post from 2014) were not accessible. Two websites were functioning normally.
Non-pornographic video sites such as youtube.com, vimeo.com or dailymotion.com were accessible normally.
However, on an Airtel mobile phone internet connection, all sites were working normally.
Update 4: One Reddit user’s browser displayed the message “Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from Department of Telecommunications, Government of India” when attempting to access a porn site:
The Supreme Court declined to pass an interim order last month to block pornography websites in India, saying “how can you stop me from watching it within the four walls of my room” in a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by an advocate to ban pornography websites in the country.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) HL Dattu observed that banning the watching of pornography at home would be “a violation of article 21”, the right to personal liberty, reported The Hindu.
The case is ongoing.
Advocate Apar Gupta (@aparatbar) commented on Twitter that the only way to find out whether this was a government block, would be to file a Right to Information (RTI) request with the Department of Telecommunication (DOT).
My hunch: does not seem to be a judicial order arising from K. Vaswani. May be DOT directions under the Blocking Rules, 2009.
The block does not appear to be at a domain-name server (DNS) level or IP address level, as three of the top five sites still responded to so-called ping requests by Legally India, though two timed out.
That said, it is a possibility that technical issues are behind the partial block.
We have reached out to the DOT for comment or confirmation.
Update 2: Hacktivist and technology expert Oxblood Ruffin 3.0 @OxbloodRuffin tweeted:
@LegallyIndia I'm not sufficiently familiar with the case, but my gut says this isn't a technical issue. More like inappropriate influence.
Update 3: In November 2014, the Narendra Modi government reportedly intending to “create a list of porn websites and ask Internet service providers (ISPs) to block them”, reported the Business Standard (via Reddit).
Update: Apar Gupta had written in a post on Facebook on 3 April:
The Kamlesh Vaswani petition which is asking for a web filter to censor any obscene content (obscenity is wider than pornography) is likely to come up for hearing on 14.04.2015. It is premised on a presumption that the consumption of pornography incites and causes sexual violence to women.
The Supreme Court by its Order on 12.07.2013 has stated that, "since this is not an adversarial litigation as such, it is hoped that all the parties, including the Union of India, will treat the matter with all seriousness and take positive steps to try and contain the menace".
A perceptible lack of opposition this case, why it is dangerous, is explained well by a quote from Nadine Strossen's (former president of the ACLU) in her book, Defending Pornography.
Its long but please bear with it. It articulates some important points and learnings which I thought will be useful to share.
"I share the fears, frustration, and fury about the ongoing problems of violence and discrimination against women, which no doubt have driven may to embrace the, "quick fix" that censoring pornography is claimed to offer. Who wouldn't welcome an end to the threat of violence that so many women feel every time they venture out alone in the dark? But censoring pornography would not reduce misogynistic violence or discrimination; worse yet, as this book shows, it would likely aggravate those grave problems. In the words of feminist attorney Cathy Crosson, while the procensorship strategy may be superficially appealing, at bottom it reflects, "the defeated, defeatist politics of those who have given up on really altering the basic institutions of women's oppression and instead have decided to slay the messenger."
The pornography feminists have forged frighteningly effective alliances with traditional political and religious conservatives who staunchly oppose women's rights, but who also seek to supress pornography. As noted by feminist anthropologist Carole Vance, "Every right-winger agrees that porn leads to women's inequality -- an inequality that doesn't bother him in any other way."
Under their join antipornography banner, the allies in this feminist-fundamentalist axis have mounted increasing - and increasingly successful -- campaigns against a wide range of sexually oriented expression, including not only art and literature, but also materials concerning such pressing public issues as AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, contraception, sexism, and sexual orientation.
So influential have the MacDworkinities become that all too many citizens and officials believe that the suppression of sexually oriented materials is a high priority for all feminists, or even all women. But nothing could be further from the truth.
An increasingly vocal cadre of feminist women who are dedicated to securing equal rights for women and to combating women's continuing second-class citizenship in our society strongly opposes any effort to censor sexual expression. We are as committed as any other feminists to eradicating violence and discrimination against women; indeed, many of us work directly for these goals every day of our lives. But we believe that suppressing sexual words and images will not advance these crucial causes. To the contrary we are convinced that censoring sexual expression actually would do more harm than good to women's right and safety. We adamantly oppose any effort to restrict sexual speech not only because it would violate our cherished First Amendment freedoms -- our freedoms to read, think, speak, sing, write, paint, dance, dream, photograph, film and fantasise as we wish ---- but it would undermine our equality, our status, our dignity and our autonomy".
Photo by Aotearoa
threads most popular
thread most upvoted
comment newest
first oldest
first
most top 10 porn sites blocked
more to follows , losing them one by one
will to live reducing
leave country
leaving country
what do you say?!
One hand curb black money initiative and ban porn will open all doors to cd and use markets good business
How about Bojpuri/Telugu/Kannada/Hindi hot and sexy songs on YouTube ? These are more erotic than pornhub videos
Babus were never smart at Delhi and ever will be !!!
I had been a stuanch supporter of BJP but this is utter nonsense...
anyways govt cant ban porn... u can use proxy...
if they ban proxy you can use httptunnel client...
this they cannot block... none of the porn servers are in India. This is mere a step showing cowardness of the modi govt, when you cant regularise (as physically servers are out of India's territory and jurisdiction) then ban them.
private viewing in a closed room has noting to do with govt.
now the govt should ban people from having sex or regularize the number of times they have it...
They seem to have plagiarized your article.
Its a good step for children, but what about censoring bollywood vulgarity?
Dear Sir,
The safety of the children depends on the parents. Blocking and censoring everything abstains even adults from enjoying them. So it's a ridiculously stupid move made by daft medieval puritans.
Hello 'modern' dark age, we're (India) coming. ?#?UnbanPorn?
PS: I'm watching a Porno right now!!!!
Interestingly, it was the Brits who were quite upset by the erotic art outside Khajuraho when they first stumbled upon it...
When we talk about 19 1 (a) and 19 (2) restrictions on public order, morality...if websites desiminating content recorded using spy cams, breaching individual privacy can't be regulated then please tell me what can. while most of the readers here may be mature adults who can decide on what they want to do with their time and lives, the fact remains that the state has a responsibility namely for minors and others who can't differentiate between fiction shown on these websites and reality. Case in point being a large number of videos show actors and actresses enacting real life situations like travelling by bus, train etc. where men seem to force themselves upon the actress without her consent. While a mature reader from this website may be able to differentiate between fiction and reality sadly with the level of education in our country an equally large if not more number would not be able to.
While we may want an extremely liberal state, which allows one to do anything they want, the fact is that it's not always about binary choices. Middle points have to be taken in most situations. So while somebody is free to see porn within the four walls of his/ her room he/ she is not free to share it freely on the internet where he doesn't know who is ultimately going to be viewing the said content.
Wish if You tried to present all sides of the issue, before leading others to start their rant on fascist state, saffron control etc.
So why did the government not make these arguments and have a pseudo-democratic debate or at least some transparency before secretly banning it?
And if the British were scandalised on seeing it, it's because they did not have such a well defined body of philosophy as Hindu philiosophy to appreciate such fine nuances. They looked at it from the same lense from which you are after 200 years looking at these sculptures- as PORN
Please make a correct depiction, and alter the image and caption. To err is human!
The point is: 100 years ago the Brits thought the temples were porn and obscene, and even Mahatma Gandhi was reportedly not fond of Khajuraho and considered having the erotic statuettes removed according to some accounts.
Morality changes and depends on the eye of the observer, and a classical legal obscenity test of "I know it when I see it" is literally subjective.
Ask this: Would a pencil sketch depiction of some of the scenes of Khajuraho be pornography? How about an oil painting? Would a Japanese manga cartoon? How about a still photo with actors? How about a video without penetration? How about a video with penetration?
The line between porn and art can be blurry and involves complex questions of morality, and if we're allowing the government to choose, then every few years we might end up with a different list of what's blocked and what's not. Who knows, Khajuraho could be next...
You have no idea how porn sites work then.
Child porn is illegal and are not found in ANY of the popular porn sites.
As for situations, females are participating in it as well. So only an idiot would make out a sexism accusation out of it.
Also please don't bring in the sexism arguement, there is a very popular ted video on the pernicious effect of pornography on the female actresses look it up. Just like in prostitution, most of these women actresses are there due to the compulsions of circumstances. So had there not been a market from our ends for such content,probably their fate might have been different.
And if government ban the porn then someone will can not control of his or her feeling and will do something wrong .. sex is natural its not wrong wether to do watch or to see .. and its personal .. current rules are enough but its immaturity of some people who try to ban the porn ..
But now it seems Torrent sites are opening but porn not yet.
punch your gun and thereafter you will be least worried about the Ban..!!
That made no sense whatsoever.
spacenab.com/dissid/1523/How-to-access-all-porn-websites-in-India.html
Get a life guys (and girls)...get a girl friend...boy friend...dog ...a cat (sorry, last two against the order of nature!!). What losers!
A stray observation of an SC judge - and hey everyone interprets this as pornography is legal! The same SC refused to de-criminalise sec 377 and sent it back to govt.
All this reeks of hypocrisy.
threads most popular
thread most upvoted
comment newest
first oldest
first