Govt lifts ban on websites containing no child pornography

New Delhi, Aug 4

The Central Government has decided to unblock websites that did not contain child pornography after its decision to block 857 websites triggered a public outcry.

The decision, which was taken by the Department of Telecommunications on Tuesday, reviewed a discreet order it issued on July 31 directing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block 857 websites, including humour site 9GAG and CollegeHumor as well as Playboy, citing calling them a “public morality”.

The ban triggered an outrage, with people taking to social networking sites to mock the “censorship”, some even calling it a Taliban-like diktat.

"The government is directing Internet service providers as an interim measure to disable porn sites featuring child pornography. Other considerations will be looked into after court hearing," a high-ranking source said.

After a review meeting held on Tuesday Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad defended the Department’s initial decision, calling it “obedience to the observation of the Supreme Court that asked the department to take action on the list of alleged porn sites provided by the petitioner."

"The government compliments the dissemination of idea on the social media. We have launched the mygov platform seeking views of people of India on developmental agenda and lakhs of people are participating on this platform," he said.

Prasad had claimed on Monday that the NDA government was committed towards freedom on social media and Internet.

"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," he had said.

In its order on July 31, DoT had directed ISPs to disable URLs of 857 websites 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."     

It also directed that the contents of the letter should be kept confidential. — PTI