Revision as of 08:58, 4 November 2018

Pornography laws in India: April 2013-April 2014; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, August 4, 2015

Pornography laws in India: May 2014-August 2015; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, August 4, 2015

Child Pornography

2015-17: the worst affected cities

Himanshi Dhawan, Jan 22 2017: The Times of India

 The arrest of American linguistics expert Ja mes Kirk Jones last week for possessing and sharing nearly 30,000 files of child pornography had jolted Hyderabad. Recent government data shows the rot runs deeper: alongside metros, many of India's tier-II cities were the worst offenders on surfing and sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Amritsar, Lucknow, Alappuzha and Thrissur were among the 10 worst cities where CSAM was shared on multiple occasions.

Amritsar took top place with more than 4.3 lakh “files of interest“ -code for child porn -shared between July 1, 2016 and January 15, 2017. Delhi was second, followed by Lucknow. There are cities like Agra, Kanpur, Bar rackpore and Dimapur where we had not seen any surfing for CSAM (child sexual abuse material) until six months ago.

Here too there is significant growth,“ said a government source. The data is limited to IP addresses originating in the country , but there are several instances of surfers using TOR (The Onion Router) to mask or reroute their IP address, making it appear as if they are based in another country , to avoid being tracked.

Online child porn is directly linked to offline child abuse. “For every child porn video, there is a child abuse victim somewhere,“ said Vidya Reddy from Tulir -Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse. “The accessibility of technology has ensured that CSAM is more easily available than ever before,“ she added. In fact, Jones was also using a peer-to-peer, filesharing network -GigaTribe, to stay in contact with 490 `like-minded' friends.

Despite the large volume of child porn being shared through private social media groups, reporting remains abysmally low.The National Crime Records Bureau has registered just about 1,540 cases of online child sexual abuse in 2015-16. If not for an Interpol alert, Jones too would have flown under the radar.

In fact, according to cyber crime law expert Prashant Mali, few people even realise that watching or downloading child porn is a crime.“Under the present laws, watching or sharing such material is a non-bailable offence attracting up to 7 years imprisonment and a Rs 10 lakh penalty ,“ says Mali.

A major hurdle in the detection of online CSAM is the international nature of the crime. “A person could ostensibly view porn in India, which may have its server in Russia, its pay-site in Scotland and be hosted in Austria,“ says Reddy of Tulir. “We need a transnational police force with state-ofthe-art forensic laboratories and a cohesive policy .“

A step in the right direction was taken this week by Union minister Maneka Gandhi, who announced the establishment of a national alliance that would coordinate with law enforcement agencies, ministries, information technology experts, Interpol, and NGOs to curb the proliferation of CSAM online. The alliance will achieve its objective by blocking websites that host CSAM, setting up a hotline for complaints and placing restrictions on the travel of known sex offenders into the country . The minister has already written to the MEA asking for such visa restrictions be put in place.

2016: types preferred, major sources

The Times of India, Apr 7, 2016

Indians love 'desi' porn, Delhi tops with 39% traffic

Syed Mohammed

TOI recently asked PornHub, a popular porn site, about viewership trends. The site revealed that trends New Delhi tops in viewership with 39.2 per cent of porn traffic. The top search terms for smut in India are "Indian college girls", "Indian bhabhi," "Bengali" and "Indian aunty".

Like Kolkatans, Delhiites average 9 minutes and 29 seconds per viewing session — 31 seconds longer than the national average. Delhi also seems to have a fetish for women's backsides.

PornHub, shows the "top relative category" in Delhi is "ass", which the city is 46 per cent more likely to watch than the rest of the country. The "school" category is also very popular, taking third place. Last August, the department of telecommunications banned 857 websites containing pornographic content, but later reversed the decision, limiting the ban to child pornography.

Chennai is a distant second in terms of an appetite for porn. It accounts for a little under 6 per cent of traffic and displays parochial tastes with the top search category being "Tamil". Chennaites also have the shortest viewing sessions, averaging 7 minutes and 52 seconds, as against the national average of 8 minutes and 58 seconds. Mumbai, fourth in terms of traffic, hasthe most Oedipal of porn viewers as 46 per cent are more likely to watch videos of older women.

Kolkata, ranked fifth, is the only city with a taste for 'hentai', a form of Japanese animated pornography. The most searched celebrity in India is Sunny Leone, followed by Mia Khalifa and reality TV star Kim Kardashian.

Websites

2018: Govt bans 827 porn sites

Rachel Chitra, Govt plays Net nanny, bans 827 porn sites; subscribers see red, November 1, 2018: The Times of India

Move Against Net Neutrality Laws: Viewers

India’s porn ban, extending to 827 websites, has thousands of mobile users up in arms. Particularly aggrieved are those who have paid annual subscriptions.

Pornhub, whose third largest customer base comes from India (the first two are US and UK), has created a mirror site Pornhub.net to get around the ban. Other sites like Behance.net have advised their clients to download the mobile app. The customer care divisions of Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone have been flooded with calls.

Thousands of tweets saw the hashtag #pornban, with users saying this goes against net neutrality laws in India, which prohibit discrimination against any content provider. Users feel the government should have taken strong action against child porn, rape porn and BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism types of sexual practice), and not against the more well-known porn websites like Pornhub and Xvideos.com, who ensure their content is above board.

That was a sentiment voiced also by Pornhub vice president Corey Price: “This is apparent by the fact that they only banned large sites like Pornhub, and didn’t block thousands of risky porn sites that may contain illegal content. There are no laws against pornography in India and watching adult content privately. It’s evident that the Indian government is using our sites as a scapegoat.”

Lawyer PK Rajagopal from the Madras HC, said in a mature democracy, decisions about what to watch should be left to viewers. “Banning child porn or violent content is acceptable. But a ban on nudity or porn amounts to moral policing. Our freedom of expression and right to consumption is protected by article (19) of the constitution,” he said.

There are supporters of the ban too, who point to studies showing clear links between porn and violence against women.

“There have been many studies showing that porn addiction can lead to sexual violence against women. In the largest interests of the public, the government might have undertaken this step. Net neutrality laws have been adopted. But there’s no such thing as absolute neutrality and absolute non-interference. Reasonable restrictions can be placed if the government has concerns,” said A Sirajudeen, senior advocate in the Supreme Court.