2/24/2019 Five reasons why porn ban won't work - Mail Today News

NEWS LIVE TV
APP MAGAZINE
HOME VIDEOS INDIA MOVIES TECH SPORTS FACT CHECK TRENDING   
ELECTIONS

BUSINESS News / Mail Today

TELEVISION   
/

Five reasons why porn ban won't work

The Information Technology Act does not make it illegal to view adult porn, but
watching child pornography is an offence under Section 67B of IT Act, added in
2008.
ADVERTISEMENT

Javed Anwer Harish V Nair

New Delhi August 4, 2015 UPDATED: August 4, 2015 15:32 IST

    

The Information Technology Act does not make it illegal to view adult porn, but watching child pornography is an
offence under Section 67B of IT Act, added in 2008

A
s the Narendra Modi government's decision to block nearly 900 porn sites raised
the hackles of the votaries of right to privacy, the increasing feeling even among
cyber experts is that it will be a "failed attempt" and only act as a catalyst for surge in
https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/five-reasons-why-porn-ban-wont-work-286248-2015-08-04 1/9
2/24/2019 Five reasons why porn ban won't work - Mail Today News

viewing.

While there is a debate on whether the ban is correct or not, when it comes to the
technology part of the question, the government is just wasting its time, they say.

Porn is fairly easily and widely available on the web and clamping down on it is near
impossible, unless the government is willing to spend crores every year just to keep an
updated web content filtering system in place.

Cyber law expert Pavan Duggal said, "By using proxy servers you can access blocked
sites of all websites located outside India. Blocking orders act as a catalyst for
increasing traffic? you are increasing peoples' curiosity and it will not be a successful
initiative."

The government's order to telecom operators and internet service providers came in
as a surprise as just a month ago Chief Justice of India HL Dattu had flatly refused to
block the sites citing the very right to privacy and person.

"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", Justice Dattu had said on
July 5.

The Information Technology Act does not make it illegal to view adult porn, but
watching child pornography is an offence under Section 67B of IT Act, added in 2008.

"Right to privacy is integral to fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the

Constitution. SC has also upheld it several times including in this case. It includes
access to any adult content by adult persons that is why Parliament also opted not to
make any law criminalising watching porn. You should realise that the country's Chief
Justice also upheld the crucial right," said Duggal.

Of course, publishing and transmitting an obscene act is an offence under Section 67

of the Information Technology Act.

'Failed Experiment'

A di t t bl ki f b it ill b
https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/five-reasons-why-porn-ban-wont-work-286248-2015-08-04 f il d i tb it i 2/9
2/24/2019 Five reasons why porn ban won't work - Mail Today News
According to experts, blocking of porn websites will be a failed experiment because it is
impossible to block all servers. No government generally bans porn sites as they are
the biggest driver of e-commerce intervention. It is a good intention but the
government should not bite more than they can chew. The US and China tried to fight
porn and saw its results and then they only limited themselves to child pornography.

India needs to learn and adopt a pragmatic approach. If they better go after the
paedophiles, then the chances of success is more higher, they said.

Lawyer Kamlesh Vaswani, on whose petition before the Supreme Court the whole ban
came about, had argued that crime against women and children which is "majorly
influenced" by such porn videos is on the rise.

The Centre's order on Sunday was apparently in accordance with the earlier
observation of the court that such erotic content needs to be blocked. Vaswani's lawyer
Raj Panjwani reacted to the ban by saying, "It is a welcome step. The government
should continue to ban websites".

But cyber experts reiterated that banning the porn sites is an absolutely useless
exercise. Most of these websites are used to host or serve adult content but some, like
9Gag TV, are just plain humour and meme sites which often share innocuous jokes
with the users.

Mail Today gives four reasons why in terms of technology, the ban on porn is futile.

https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/five-reasons-why-porn-ban-wont-work-286248-2015-08-04 3/9
2/24/2019 Five reasons why porn ban won't work - Mail Today News

Just a handful of sites have been blocked

There are tens of thousands pornographic sites on the internet. Even with its
exhaustive ban list, the government is aiming to block merely hundreds. While a lot of
popular websites are part of the block list, anyone in India looking for porn will find it
just one Google search away.

It is easy to bypass ban

By its nature, internet is fairly open. And while in the last few years the governments
have become smarter at regulating the web, it is still not easy to really block a website.
In fact if the person who wants to access the website is committed to his cause it is
almost impossible to block the access. The kind of blocks Indian government imposes
on certain websites with the help of internet service providers can be easily bypassed
with a free web-based proxy such as www.hide.me. Then there are VPNs, which are
virtual and secure tunnels that people can use to access almost any content on the
web.

No deep content filtering

To block content, the Indian government with the help of internet service providers,
use a listbased approach. This means list of websites, with their exact website URL, are
fed into a system and then access to those sites is denied to a user. It can be easily
bypassed if the blocked website decides to create a mirror site or if it changes the
name. The listbased filtering system can also be defeated if a website decides to
encrypt the traffic by using HTTPS instead of HTTP because then the internet service
providers can't see what a user is accessing. The blocks and content filtering can be
made more robust with keyword-based filtering or by employing deep packet
inspection of the internet traffic. This is something China or countries like Saudi Arabia
do but it is also vastly more expensive and difficult to maintain.

Websites are just one part of internet

Adult websites are just one part of the internet. There are other communication
protocols that internet users follow. For example, even if websites are banned, porn
can be downloaded using Bit-Torrent technology. Similarly, peer-topeer networks like
eMule or Bulletin Boards can be used to download and share files, including porn files.

Get real time alerts and all the news on your phone with the all new India Today app Download from
https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/five-reasons-why-porn-ban-wont-work-286248-2015-08-04 4/9
2/24/2019 Five reasons why porn ban won't work - Mail Today News
Get real-time alerts and all the news on your phone with the all-new India Today app. Download from

POST YOUR COMMENT ( 1 )

Do You Like This Story?  

 

 Tags : Porn Ban Narendra Modi

What is your reaction? 29 votes Powered by Vuukle

21% 3% 7% 7% 62% 0%

happy unmoved amused excited angry sad

1 comment ❤  Recommend 0

Write a comment

Name
Email
I agree with Vuukle's Privacy Policy
Sign in
Sort by: Latest Best Editor's Pick More
A Apong 5 points
3 months ago
I hate modi
So
https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/five-reasons-why-porn-ban-wont-work-286248-2015-08-04 5/9