Back in October of 2018, as AVN.com reported at the time, India began implementing a nationwide ban on porn sites, with ISPs blocking 827 sites after a court ordered the ban. But now that the coronavirus pandemic has upended daily life in the world’s second most populous country, it appears that the online porn ban is being quietly lifted.
India so far has escaped the most damaging impact of the pandemic, with 722 cases and 16 deaths reported in the nation of 1.3 billion. The low numbers, however, could simply reflect a lack of reliable testing for the virus in India.
But according to a New York Times report, India’s high population density combined with a shaky health care system make the country particularly vulnerable to a disastrous outbreak of the disease.
In an effort to slow the coronavirus pandemic in its tracks, on Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (pictured above) issued a “stay at home” order for the entire country, closing all but essential businesses—a move that is likely to have dire consequences for the already poverty-stricken nation.
To make the 21-day lockdown more bearable for India’s population, an advocacy group known as Youth Quick Foundation has asked Modi to lift the internet porn ban. And according to some reports, just two days into the massive shutdown, some sites are already back online.
While PornHub remained inaccessible at its “.com” online address, the site PornHub.org was accessible within India as of Wednesday, according to an International Business Times report, which noted that “several other” porn sites were also reachable.
The IB Times report also noted that “there was no official confirmation” that the porn ban had been lifted, even partially. But not only were some sites accessible, they were offering users free access to “premium” paid content during the 21-day lockdown.
Indian porn fans were already getting around the porn ban using VPNs, which disguise an internet address to appear as the user is located outside of India, and similar techniques.
In fact, even before the nationwide lockdown went into effect, many Indians remained inside anyway, to avoid contracting the virus. The tube site xHamster reported a 20 percent spike in visitors form India through the first three weeks of March, compared to the previous month.
Photo by PMO India / Wikimedia Commons
