Porn ban: People will soon learn to circumvent ISPs and govt orders, expert says

The article by Karthikeyan Hemalatha  was published in the Times of India on August 2. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

The government used other sections of the Act to circumvent this provision. Sources in the Department of Telecommunication, which comes under the ministry of communications and information technology, said a notification had been issued under Section 79 (b) of IT Act under which internet service providers could be penalized for not following government orders. "Though the section protects an internet service provider (ISP) from legal action for the content it may allow, it can be penalized for not following government orders to ban them," said Prakash.

Last month, the Supreme Court declined to pass an interim order to block websites which have pornographic content. "Such interim orders cannot be passed by this court. Somebody may come to the court and say 'look I am above 18 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]," said Chief Justice H L Dattu.

The judge was reacting to a public interest litigation filed by advocate Kamlesh Vashwani who was seeking to block porn websites in the country. "The issue is definitely serious and some steps need to be taken. The Centre is expected to take a stand. Let us see what stand the Centre will take," the Chief Justice said and directed the Centre to reply within four weeks. Over the weekend, the stance became clear.

Sources also say that Section 19 (2) of the Constitution was used for the ban. The section allows the government to impose "reasonable restrictions in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the state, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court."

For netizens, the government could actually be providing crash courses on proxy sites. "This is the best way to teach people on how to circumvent ISPs and government orders," said Prakash, adding that real abusive porn sites might still be available.

"There is no dynamic mechanism to block all sites with pornographic content. The government has to individually pick URLs (uniform resource locator) to ban websites. Right now, only popular websites have been banned and the little known abusive sites like those that propagate revenge porn or child porn," said Prakash. "No ban can be comprehensive," he added.