Govt lifts ban on websites that don't have child pornography

Faced with criticism over its order to block access to 857 pornographic and humour websites, the government on Tuesday lifted ban on all those sites that do not feature child pornographic content.

Days after its blanket ban order drew severe criticism on social media and other forums, the department of telecom said in an order: "The intermediaries (ISPs) are hereby directed that they are free not to disable any of the 857 URLs... which do not have child pornographic content."

A top official said, "The government is directing internet service providers (ISPs) as an interim measure to disable porn sites featuring child pornography. Other considerations will be looked into after court hearing."

The telecommunications department, in a discreet order last Friday, had asked ISPs to block access to 857 websites, including humour sites 9GAG and CollegeHumor.

DoT, in the order, asked for "disablement" of URLs of 857 websites under the provision of section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 "as the content hosted on these websites related to morality, decency as given in Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India. It asked contents of the letter to be kept confidential.