India Censored For Sex

While the Kama Sutra and the Bollywood wet sari scene have been imported from the country, it seems that India is not yet ready to be exposed to the delicate subject of sex on the internet. An investigation has uncovered that several internet companies have very quietly introduced filters, in order to prevent Indian users from accessing sexual content.

Yahoo search engine and the Flickr photo-sharing site, which is owned by Yahoo, altered their sites earlier this month, preventing users in India from switching off their safe-search function. The block also applies to users in Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea.

Microsoft’s Bing has also barred Indian users from searching for sexual content. Users who try immediately receive a notice informing them that their “country or region requires a strict Bing SafeSearch setting, which filters out results that might return adult content.”

The new, stringent measures are understood to be in response to recent changes to India’s Information Technology Act of 2000, which bans the publication of pornographic material. These latest attempts to constrain internet users come at a time when the sacrilegious subject of sexual behaviour is once again dominating the domestic headlines. Courtesy of gaurdian.co.uk