No porn for Jio users! Mukesh Ambani's telecom firm blocks access to pornographic websites

In its financial results for the September quarter, Reliance Jio said that it was video consumption that drove usage, with its average user watching 17.5 hours worth of videos in a month. While one could only speculate the nature of videos that Jio users are watching, the Mukesh Ambani-led telco seems keen on making sure that they are not the erotic kind. Going by some users' accounts, Reliance Jio has banned hundreds of pornographic websites from its network, including the ones like Pornhub and Xvideos.

"I've been trying to load a few of the porn sites but none of them seem to load on the Jio network. Is it just me or are you people facing the same issues," a Jio user posted on Reddit. In the thread of comments that followed, several other users also complained of similar problems. While some of the lesser known porn sites were reported to be working, the problem did not seem to have emerged with other telecom operators. Yet.

In a judgement on September 28, the Uttarakhand High Court had directed internet service providers (ISP) to abide by the Union government's order to ban hundreds of pornographic sites. Back in August 2015, the Department of Telecommunications had directed (ISPs) to block more than 800 websites showing porn, or face the risk of losing their licenses. This means that telecom service operators other than Jio could soon follow suit and ban pornographic content on their network.

In its order, the Uttarakhand High Court had stated that unlimited access to pornographic content has to be curbed or blocked to avoid and adverse influence on the impressionable minds of children. The order came after reports of a gangrape in Dehradun where the perpetrators were schoolchildren allegedly influenced by porn clips.

Apart from sites with pornographic content, there are a lot of websites that are blocked in India. Sites with disturbing content, file sharing and torrent sites, etc, cannot be viewed in India, but the block is not to the impenetrable kind, like in the case of ban on Google sites in China.

A local ISP-level block, which is commonly seen in India, can be surpassed by using VPN, Tor web browser, a different DNS server, or similar methods. However, content with child pornography, child abuse or extreme acts of violence are explicitly illegal in the country, and accessing them in any manner could lead to legal action.

Edited by Vivek Punj