1. Even non-porn sites were banned
The Department of Telecom was directed to block the 857 websites by the Centre in a bid to curb child pornography, in line with a 2013 petition filed by Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vasvani and had taken into consideration the list of websites he has provided.
However, the
list of websites for some reason also included non-porn websites like CollegeHumour.com, 9gag.com, Barstool Sports (
Barstool Sports ShitBrix.com, PopURLs.com. Don't ask why but they were just there, and the only presumption for now is that petitioner didn't like what he saw on them. And since it is too much of a bother to check what they were banning, the government seems to have just forwarded the entire list to Internet Service Providers
2. It's not only child porn sites that have been banned
The DoT
is claiming that the order passed was only to block child porn websites, but as we have seen lots of other sites were blocked as well. There are now
enough articles doing the rounds about how VPN will allow you to access these sites. If VPN's are too much of a hassle, you can go to proxies, torrents or even IRC. A ban that is so weak amounts to nothing. So all the government has really tried to do is comply with the Supreme Court observations and it only shows they aren't serious about this.
3. Now mulling an ombudsman to monitor porn
According to
one report, the government is now planning an ombudsman to monitor pornography. Now imagine one bureaucrat sitting somewhere in a deep, dark corner, and his job will be to certify porn - X, XX, XXX, ban. Instead of this, in most countries there are laws to ensure you can’t view and trade images of children pressed into pornography.
4. Banning only 857 websites
In 2010, out of the million most popular websites in the world, 42,337 were sex-related sites. That’s about 4 percent of the total websites in the world. We are now in 2015 -- the number can be presumed to have grown exponentially. Just to give you some perspective of how much more porn is being consumed, since the start of 2015, there have been over 1,320, 679, 855 searches for online porn.
5. Not being a 'Talibani government' but choosing to act without consultation
Despite the intense criticism over the ban, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad came out strongly in its defence.
"I reject with contempt the charge that it is a Talibani government, as being said by some of the critics. Our government supports free media, respect communication on social media and has respected freedom of communication always. My government is committed towards freedom on the social media and communication on the Internet," he said.
Banning just 857 websites: Five things that are truly ridiculous about India's porn ban - Firstpost
