Social networking furore in India after porn ban

Ever since the independence of India, the country has witnesses a controversy on the right to speech and expression and the “reasonable limits” under which the people can express it. The conflict between the government and the citizens, and the traditionalists and the modernists has been as long as that. This conflict was renewed recently when the GOI slapped a blanket ban on more than 800 websites showing/exhibiting sexually explicit material.

The ban

GOI bans porn

With no formal announcement from the Union Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Netizens came to realize about the ban when a number of website showing sexually explicit material failed to open. First, the people thought that there was an error in the connection. Then they thought their ISPs were blocking the passage of these sites on their own. The search for popular porn sites Pornhub and Redtube only led to them to a blank page. It was soon through the word of mouth (words) on the internet, the Netizens realized that a ban had come their way.

The controversy

ban on websites

While the government may have its justifications behind the banning of these websites, it is the way – a sneaky method, in which the government carried out the whole operations. The awakened citizens fear that the government might replicate the same act in future too in order to ban even those websites that it sees with disfavor. The debate rages around the fundamental rights granting the individual’s right to speech and expression.

The reaction on Social Internet

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Twitter was deluged with Tweets from its members who were simply blown by this unexpected ban. Here is what the people had to say on Twitter-

The larger issue

Voyeur

Apart from this amusing take on the government, the larger question of the freedom of the people and right to speech and expression still looms high among the people. Earlier this year, in a landmark judgment, Supreme Court held down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act as unconstitutional and banned it outright, while it also read down the scope of Section 79. Both the Section were in the past grossly misused by the government to put a stop on the internet content that it deemed inappropriate.

Thus as the issue rages, it remains to be seen what will finally come out what stand the Supreme Court will take on the issue. There, in the corridors of justice, might lay the salvation of the aggrieved Netizens.

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