Facing flak over blocking of 857 websites, the government on Tuesday reviewed its order and decided to lift ban on those sites which did not contain pornographic material but had still faced action. The ban has been partially lifted and only sites promoting child porn would continue to be prohibited.

Days after its blanket ban order drew severe criticism on social media and other forums, the department of telecom said in an order: “The intermediaries (ISPs) are hereby directed that they are free not to disable any of the 857 URLs… which do not have child pornographic content.”

Govt Asks ISPs To Block Only Sites Promoting Child Porn

The telecommunications department, in a discreet order last Friday, had asked ISPs to block access to 857 websites, including humour sites 9GAG and CollegeHumor.

The DoT, in its order, asked for “disablement” of URLs of 857 websites under the provision of section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 “as the content hosted on these websites related to morality, decency as given in Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India. It asked contents of the letter to be kept confidential.

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A top official 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.”

Child pornography stays banned but govt unblocks other sites:

Although millions of pornographic websites can be accessed from the worldwide web, top officials said two criteria were examined to impose the selective ban: sites that were tracked by Cert-in, the government’s nodal agency on cyber security, and those that showed child pornography.

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An embattled telecom and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad refuted the charge of “Talibanisation” on Monday. Describing the ban order as “an interim measure”, he said, “Our government supports a free media, respects communication on social media and has respected freedom of communication at all times. My government is committed towards freedom on social media and communication on the Internet.”