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Comedy & torrent sites also blocked, reveals leaked order of 857 blocked ‘porn’ sites (via CIS India)

CollegeHumor: Porny?
CollegeHumor: Porny?

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) India’s Pranesh Prakash, has published the leaked Department of Telecommunication (DOT) letter ordering internet providers to block 857 websites.

Presumably not entirely safe for all workplaces: Leaked order (3MB download, via CIS)

The list includes mostly pornographic websites but also includes comedy site collegehumor.com, which hosts comedy videos aimed at a young audience. According to Wikipedia:

The site features daily original comedy videos and articles created by its in-house writing and production team, in addition to user-submitted videos, pictures, articles and links.

9gag.tv screenshot (click to enlarge)
9gag.tv screenshot (click to enlarge)
Update: Bibhas Debnath @bibhasdn tweeted that 9gag.tv was also blocked. 9gag.tv, according to the Internet Archive’s WayBackMachine, hosts humorous viral videos (see picture right).

Also on the block list are kickass.com and kickass.to, which are sites hosting torrent files that allow users to download mostly copyrighted content from other users.

Legally India has confirmed that the site has been blocked on a Delhi Spectranet connection:

The order states that:

Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY) has requested DoT to notify intermediaries (ISPs) for disablement of the following URLs under the provision of section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, as the content hosted on these websites related to morality, decency as given in Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India.

One senior manager at a service provider told Legally India yesterday that the blocking order was stated to have been made under rule 12 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009.

Legally India has contacted the source today, who said that the email body that contained the PDF attachment cited rule 12 of the above IT Rules.

The order notes that the “contents of this letter may kindly be kept confidential” and that all internet providers are “requested to take necessary action as per the direction of the DeitY”.

The existence and scope of the order was first reported by Legally India yesterday, after users on Reddit began to notice on Saturday that pornographic websites were blocked.

To be updated

2015 07 31 DoT Block Order Decency (PDF), courtesy of CIS India

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