CRUISING for SEX - India Blocks 857 Adult Sites

This weekend the government of India unexpectedly and without warning blocked 857 adult sites. This is being characterized in the mainstream media as "blocking porn sites," but according to the Adult Industry source JRL Charts it also includes hook-up/dating site Adult Friend Finder and popular porn blog Flesbot.

Here is an excerpt from the New York Times story:

India Blocks 857 Pornography Websites, Defying Supreme Court Decision

Quote:

NEW DELHI — Without warning or explanation, the Indian government this weekend ordered Internet service providers to block access to 857 pornography websites that had been singled out by an anti-pornography activist.

Within hours, social media platforms in India lit up with complaints from people trying to visit pornography sites only to find either a blank screen or a cryptic message saying the site had been blocked “per instructions” from India’s Department of Telecommunications.

Because the government made no official announcement about why it was censoring so many websites, much remained unclear on Monday about its intentions, including how it chose which sites to block. According to Internet service providers in India, thousands of other pornography websites were unaffected by the order.

Adding to the confusion, the government acted just weeks after India’s Supreme Court declined a request to block access to online pornography. In rejecting the request, India’s chief justice, H.L. Dattu, said adults had a fundamental right to watch pornography within the privacy of their own homes...

The list of blocked sites appears here, courtesy of India's Centre for Internet & Society. I looked through the PDF and did not see CRUISING for SEX or CRUISING for ESCORTS. I did notice our advertiser the popular and award-winning Cam Site Flirt4Free as well as Falcon Studios and Kink.com.

The file appears to be a photo that was not changed to text through an OCR process. This means it isn't "searchable" when you open it in Adobe Acrobat and it's difficult to look for any particular site without reading the whole thing. In case you cannot access it on the Centre for Internet & Society web site, I downloaded a copy and saved it here for you to view.

If you live in India or are affected by this action, or have any thoughts about Internet censorship in India or this region of the world, I hope you'll post your thoughts here.

Bob ~ CFS Editor