Pornhub, Redtube back in India, with a slight tweak
What's the story
In a major development, Redtube and Pornhub have made a return in India. The porn sites were banned under an Indian government directive that classified their content as immoral and indecent. However, now, the two popular platforms have found a work-around to give people in the country access to their content without any tricks. Here's all about it.
Ban
Indian government had banned more than 800 porn sites
Back in December, the Indian government had enforced a ban on as many as 857 porn sites. The Department of Telecommunications issued a letter instructing leading ISPs of the country to disable access to all the sites in question. It claimed the content posted on these sites went against "morality, decency as given in Article 19(2) of the Constitution".
Response
The move drew major flak from Indians
After the ban came into effect, the sites became inaccessible to people using Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and other mobile services. This drew huge flak from a large chunk of the Indian community, with many criticizing the move and resorting to using virtual private networks (VPNs), proxies and other tools to bypass the ban and access the sites in question.
Development
Now, you don't need these tools
Evidently, VPNs/proxies have proven useful, but Pornhub and Redtube, the leading players in the adult content industry, have now provided an easy way to access their content - mirror sites with new domains. They have created duplicates of their banned '.com' sites, opening access to Pornhub via pornhub.org and Redtube via Redtube.net. These sites are copies of the original ones and don't need VPNs.
Issues
Concerns over child porn, cyberbullying, sextortion still remain
While this move makes adult content shot with consent (both these sites follow strict policies restricting prohibited content) accessible to Indians, the problems of child pornography, sextortion, revenge porn, and cyber-bullying continue to persist. These issues are turning into a major concern and need immediate addressing with appropriate cybersecurity laws, several cyberlaw and internet safety experts have argued.