Indian Govt Blocks 40 Smut Sites, Forgets to Give Reason

Indian Govt Blocks 40 Smut Sites, Forgets to Give Reason is a news report published in The Register on 27 June 2013, written by Phil Muncaster. The article covers the Indian government’s order to ISPs to block 39 adult websites hosted outside India, issued without any stated reason or legal justification. Sunil Abraham is quoted characterising the order as a clear overreach by the government in interpreting the law to serve its own ends.

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Article Details

📰 Published in:: The Register
📅 Date:: 27 June 2013
👤 Author:: Phil Muncaster
📄 Type:: News Report
🔗 Read Online:: Read on The Register

Full Text

Don't mind us, we're just censoring your content for you...

The Indian government has ordered ISPs to block 39 smut flick web sites hosted outside the country without giving any explanation, stoking further fears of online censorship by the back door.

Most of the sites are web forums and so allow for the uploading of naughty images and URLs where smut-seekers can download their grumble flicks, according to Times of India. However, the sites claim to operate under the 18 USC 2257 rule, meaning actors are (supposedly) over 18 years of age, and there is apparently no indication from the Department of Telecom's order why ISPs are being asked to comply.

The message greeting web users who try to visit a blocked site now reads as follows:

This website has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to court orders or on the directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications.

While the law, updated in 2011, does forbid production, transmission and sharing of smutty content in India — therefore requiring internet cafes, for example, to block such content — there is no ban on consumption, especially from sites hosted outside India.

Sunil Abraham, director of Indian not-for-profit the Centre for Internet and Society, told ToI that the government is probably interpreting the law to serve its own ends, and that its ISP order "is a clear overreach".

The Union government has certainly been quick in the past to order blocks on any content deemed inappropriate.

Facebook and Google were forced to remove "objectionable content" from their Indian sites last year after complaints it was offensive to Muslims, Hindus and Christians.

The government was also one of many across the globe to force Google to block notorious YouTube video Innocence of Muslims.

A controversial anti-piracy ruling last June, meanwhile, led to a clumsy, large-scale block on a number of legitimate sites in the country, drawing the ire of hacktivist group Anonymous.

The government also closed hundreds of sites and social media accounts in August last year in a bid to prevent the escalation of sectarian violence across the country.

In fact, the number of content removal requests received by Google increased by 90 per cent from July-December 2012 compared with the previous six months.

For these reasons, India only enjoys "Partly Free" status, according to the Freedom on the Net 2012 report from not-for-profit Freedom House. ®

Context and Background

This article was published in June 2013, during a period when India’s internet blocking practices were attracting sustained criticism from civil society groups and technology commentators. Government directives requiring internet service providers to block websites had become more frequent, often issued through administrative orders rather than publicly explained court decisions. The absence of any stated justification in the Department of Telecommunications order discussed in the article became a focal point of the criticism.

Sunil Abraham’s remarks, quoted here via the Times of India (which The Register cites as “ToI”), reflect CIS’s consistent position that blocking orders must be narrowly scoped, legally grounded, and accompanied by stated reasons. The distinction he draws is precise: the law restricts production, transmission, and distribution of obscene content in India, but does not prohibit consumption of content hosted outside the country, making a blanket block on foreign-hosted sites a reading of the statute that goes beyond what the text supports.

The article places this incident within a broader pattern. The sectarian violence-related blocking in August 2012, the Innocence of Muslims block, the anti-piracy over-blocking, and the Facebook and Google content removal cases are all referenced as part of a documented trend of government overreach in content regulation. The 90 per cent increase in content removal requests to Google in the second half of 2012 and India’s “Partly Free” rating from Freedom House in its Freedom on the Net 2012 report are cited as evidence of that pattern’s cumulative effect.