Porn sites not difficult to access: Experts

With the central government banning some of the pornographic websites, experts believe that accessing the blocked stuff on the Internet, is not difficult as many free proxy and virtual private network (VPN) services make it available for the eager user.

The ministry of communications and information and technology, in its order of July 31 under section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act 2000 had banned 857 websites terming their content "immoral and indecent".

Sources in the government, however, denied that there was any crackdown. They said denial of access at department of telecom';s (DoT) instance was "temporary, insisting that it was a prelude to the creation of a regular regulatory oversight.

They said the directive was necessitated by the Supreme Court';s observations last month over the home ministry';s failure in blocking child pornography on several sites, and claimed that the idea was not to "black out or police what people did in their bedrooms."

The government order seems to target many sites which have nothing to do with child pornography. Experts say there';s always a workaround for accessing blocked website as long as its there on the Internet.

"The easiest method would be to make use of proxies and VPN';s. Many proxy and VPN services make it possible to access the banned stuff with complete anonymity on the Internet," Hoshie Ghaswalla, CEO of media business for CyberMedia told this correspondent.

Advocating individual';s right to have access to adult contents, Karnika Seth, Cyberlaw expert and chairperson of the Lex Cyberia said that viewing adult content by adult is not illegal but its transmission/publishing is.

While the government hasn';t said anything publicly on the censorship, access to popular pornography websites seems to have been restricted by several ISPs. Critics of the government';s move said the state should stop interfering with what adults are doing privately.

By Muhammad Zulqarnain Zulfi