The Department of Telecom's order blocking 857 porn websites, it appears that the government is taking a step back and partially lifting the ban.
IT and Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told India Today TV channel and news agency PTI that the ban will be partially lifted and websites that do not feature child porn will be unblocked. This implies that the ban will be partially lifted.
In damage control mode, Prasad took a high-level review meeting today, which was attended by IT Secretary R S Sharma and Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, among others.
Explaining the rationale behind the original directive, Prasad said, "The instant action is basically in obedience to the observation of the Supreme Court where the court asked the department to take action on the list of alleged porn sites provided by the petitioner."
The minister said that the government is committed for freedom of communication on the internet.
"The government compliments the dissemination of idea on the social media. We have launched the mygov platform seeking views of people of India on developmental agenda and lakhs of people are participating on this platform," he said.
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". Some websites in the list were found to be hosting jokes, memes and other humourous content without any pornography.
The minister said that the government is committed for freedom of communication on the internet.
"The government compliments the dissemination of idea on the social media. We have launched the mygov platform seeking views of people of India on developmental agenda and lakhs of people are participating on this platform," he said.
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". Some websites in the list were found to be hosting jokes, memes and other humourous content without any pornography.
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