It appears that several porn sites are currently inaccessible in India through various internet service providers (ISPs). Some users, those who used MTNL, BSNL and ACT ISPs reported that were getting either blank pages or messages which said: "The site has been blocked as per the instructions of Competent Authority." Meanwhile, others who were using services like Airtel and Tata Photon reported no such problem.
The observation that several porn sites were unavailable started a conversation on Twitter and a thread on Reddit. The sites seem to be opening fine for ISPs like Airtel and Tata Photon. One user reported that: “The site has been blocked as per the instruction of the Competent Authority.” According to a piece in Legally India, which used a Delhi broadband connection provided by Spectranet, 11 out of the 13 most popular porn sites were not accessible. On the other hand, most websites seem to be working fine when they are being accessed form mobile phones.
Earlier Chief Justice of India HL Dattu had observed that banning the watching of porn at home would be “a violation of Article 21”, the right to personal liberty. (Read: Why the ban on porn is futile)
Dattu had earlier said that such orders couldn't be passed. He had said: “Such interim orders cannot be passed by this court. Somebody can come to the court and say 'Look, I am an adult and how can you stop me from watching it within the four walls of my room? It is a violation of Article 21 (right to personal liberty) of the Constitution.' Yes the issue is serious and some steps need to be taken. The Centre has to take a stand, let us see what stand the Centre will take.” The remarks came after lawyer Vijay Panjwani, representing an Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vaswani, had put forward a PIL seeking the ban of all porn sites.
Here's how Twitter reacted to the news:
Watch this space for more updates.
For more updates, you can also read Apar Gupta's FB post on the issue which was written on April 3:
The Kamlesh Vaswani petition which is asking for a web filter to censor any obscene content (obscenity is wider than...
Posted by Apar Gupta on Friday, 3 April 2015
