Govt lifts ban on websites sans child pornography

August 04, 2015 21:58

Facing flak over its order to block access to 857 pornographic and humour websites, the government today lifted ban on all those websites that do not feature child pornographic content.

Days after its blanket ban order drew severe criticism on social media and other forum, the Department of Telecom in an order today said, "The intermediaries are hereby directed that they are free not to disable any of the 857 URLs... which do not have child pornographic content."

A top source 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 Department of Telecommunications in a discreet order on July 31 had asked ISPs to block access to 857 websites, including humour site 9GAG and CollegeHumor as well as Playboy, citing threat to public morality.

The order was criticised as censorship and sparked raging debate on social media and other platforms, following which Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad took a high-level review meeting today.

After the meeting, which was attended by IT Secretary R S Sharma and Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, Prasad told PTI that it was decided that ISPs would be immediately asked not to block those sites which do not contain any child pornographic material.

« Back to LIVE

TOP STORIES

PBKS not out of play-off race yet: Harshal

The pacer praised Prabhsimran Singh and Shashank Singh for helping PBKS recovering in the second inning after losing two quick wickets.

In Pictures - Narine fires KKR past LSG and to the top of IPL

Images from Sunday's IPL match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Lucknow Super Giants, in Lucknow.

Campaigning ends for third phase, high stakes for BJP

The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.

In Pictures - Liverpool back on track with win over Spurs

A summary of Sunday's action in the Premier League.

Kangana's gaffe, slams 'Tejasvi Surya' in poll speech

Addressing a gathering in the Sundernagar area of Himachal Pradesh's Mandi on Friday, Ranaut -- the BJP candidate from the Mandi Lok Sabha seat -- while referring to the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), said the...