What
does Flipkart, an ecommerce major, have in common with
Iambesharam-.com, Thatspersonal.com and Ohmysecrets.com? Nothing, it
would seem. But all four are on a list of websites the government of
Telengana wants blocked for "objectionable content". A senior government
official told ET the state government feels some websites need to be
blocked to avert crimes against women as "there is a strong concern that
viewing porn sites is leading to crime against women."
"The state government has sought our help in directing various internet
service providers (ISPs) to set up appropriate software tools which
will block content violating the provisions of the IT Act of 2000, as
amended by amendment ACT 2008," the official told ET. The list of ISPs
include Airtel, Hathway, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Tata
DoCoMo, Tata Indicom and Vodafone.
The country's largest e-commerce player's name has cropped up for supposedly promoting and selling alleged objectionable products, but the names of the products couldn't be ascertained. Flipkart didn't respond to an emailed request for comment. The state government's request comes barely a fortnight after the government blocked 32 websites and links, including several popular online tools like Vimeo, Github and Sourceforge, as they were found to have hoisted 'jihadi propaganda'.
The government later ordered ISPs to unblock all 32 of those websites. The block was believed to have been imposed at the behest of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Mumbai. The government had invoked section 69A of the Information technology Act (2000) and Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules ("Blocking Rules") to ban these websites.
Many websites have been blocked in India from time to time on various grounds. Following the Muzaffarnagar riots in September, more than 80 websites and links on social media were blocked. In June last year, the Delhi High Court ordered the blocking of 472 file-sharing websites.
The country's largest e-commerce player's name has cropped up for supposedly promoting and selling alleged objectionable products, but the names of the products couldn't be ascertained. Flipkart didn't respond to an emailed request for comment. The state government's request comes barely a fortnight after the government blocked 32 websites and links, including several popular online tools like Vimeo, Github and Sourceforge, as they were found to have hoisted 'jihadi propaganda'.
The government later ordered ISPs to unblock all 32 of those websites. The block was believed to have been imposed at the behest of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Mumbai. The government had invoked section 69A of the Information technology Act (2000) and Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules ("Blocking Rules") to ban these websites.
Many websites have been blocked in India from time to time on various grounds. Following the Muzaffarnagar riots in September, more than 80 websites and links on social media were blocked. In June last year, the Delhi High Court ordered the blocking of 472 file-sharing websites.
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