857 websites blocked to prevent porn becoming a 'social nuisance'

 

The NDA Govt lists 857 offending sites and in a letter dated Friday July 31,2015 orders service providers to block access

The Order calls for disablement if these sites u/s 79(3)(b) if IT Act,2000 as t he content relate to ''morality'' ''decency'' under Article 19(2)of the Ondian Constitution

Note

India has the second largest number of Internet users after China. Social media and smartphone use is growing rapidly

In 2011, India urged social network companies to screen content and remove offensive material.

In 2012, the government faced criticism for ordering dozens of Twitter accounts to be blocked for spreading rumours


NDA Government lifts ban on websites that do not host child pornography Tuesday August 04,2015

Under attack from Netizens, the Centre on Tuesday decided to lift the ban on those websites which do not show child pornography. Of the 857 websites which were blocked by the government, there were some sites which shared jokes and other humorous content without any pornography.

The order had come under criticism from a section of society which believes it violates their right to privacy. Some of the websites which were banned, but did not show pornography included CollegeHumor.com, 9Gag and Barstool Sports.

According to reports, most of the websites which were banned were based on a petition filed by Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vasvani in the Supreme Court.

For now the ban has been imposed on websites hosting child pornography as an interim measure before other parameters are decided during a Supreme Court hearing

Communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had a high-level review meeting on Tuesday which was attended by IT secretary R.S. Sharma and additional solicitor-general Pinky Anand, to look into the issue of blocked websites and the controversy it has generated.
During the meeting it was agreed that Internet service providers will be asked to unblock such websites which do not contain pornographic material, including child pornography.
“The instant action is basically in obedience to the observation of the Supreme Court where the court asked the department to take action on the list of alleged porn sites provided by the petitioner,” said Mr Prasad.
He said the government is committed to freedom of communication on the Internet.
“The government complements the dissemination of ideas on the social media. We have launched the mygov platform seeking views of people of India on the developmental agenda and lakhs of people are participating on this platform,” said the minister.