It might not be an easy task but the Narendra Modi government has taken up the onus of cleansing the online content available in India. The government intends to create a list of porn websites and ask Internet service providers (ISPs) to block them.
In order to prevent slowing down of Internet due to large scale blocking, the ISPs will be asked to upgrade their systems. The government has asked the Internet and Mobile Association of India to create the list.
Telecom & IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “Although porn is legal in other countries, it needs to be viewed in the context of Indian culture and moral obligation towards society.”
The Supreme Court, too, is hearing an appeal filed by lawyer Kamlesh Vasvani, requesting the court to ban porn as it leads to “activities like rape, harassment, molestations of women.” When the last hearing was held on August 29, the government had said that filtering porn is not practical.
“The problem is that you are veering down a slippery ground if you try to do this, installing filters and all,” said Prasanth Sugathan, counsel for the Software Freedom Law Centre. Talking about China, where the ban is strictly imposed, he said that it could be done in China because it has people dedicated to monitor online content.
The BJP has fully supported this move. “Pornography is against the cultural values of the country and a solution needs to be chalked out to block such content,” Arvind Gupta, head of BJP’s IT cell, told Business Insider.
However, this is going to be a stupendous task for the government. According to as estimate by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, there are more than 40 million porn websites in the world and most of them are based outside India. Moreover, there are many ways including the use of proxies to get around to blocked websites.
