Introduction
The term pornography becomes an important and dubious issue for the country. Pornography is any material (either photos or words) that is sexually explicit. It is the portrayal of the sexual matter for the purpose of sexual arousal. It may be presented in a variety of media, including magazines, animation, and short films. The term doesn’t include live exhibitions like sex shows and striptease. There are various entities within the society had depicted the sexual nature as immoral, addictive, and noxious labeling them as pornographic and attempting to have them suppressed under obscenity laws censored or made Illegal. The discussion of \’sexual matter\’ in society become more tolerant in western countries and the legal definition of obscenity has become more limited. In 1969, the blue movie by Andy Warhol, the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sexual intercourse to receive a wide theatrical release in the United States of America. Child pornography exploits children. It can be drawn, written, or created by a computer. It is also known as ‘simulated child pornography’, virtual child pornography, ‘non-photographic child pornography’, or pseudo-photographic child pornography. The reason behind the menace was, the viewers are pedophile, hebephile, or ephebophile, and minors were sexually attractive and use the pornographic content to induce arousal. It’s creating a problem for the government, statutory bodies and media to regulate it. This article will deal with, The Regulation of Pornography in U.K. Laws and the Indian Government’s steps regarding Pornography. The regulatory body plans to keep the individuals such as progenies protected from the harmful content of cyberspace. It is building the violent behavior among minors.
Pornographic content in cyberspace is widely available on a variety of sites. It is available in the form of photos, short animated movies, and many more. There are many sites where users can exchange videos or files with the public or privately. This content on the internet can be easily accessible by client users.
1. Regulation of Pornography in U.K. Laws
This part mainly concentrates on Pornography and the menace of child pornography in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The Victorian pornographic tradition included French photographs, erotic prints, and printed literature. During the 20th century, the production of pornographic magazines and films developed. By the 21st century, pornographic content would be available on television and the internet. Britain was the only liberal country to legalized hardcore pornographic content during the 1960s and 1970s. Britain\’s Obscenity laws, such as the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 are strict by European standards and made the sale of hardcore pornographic content completely illegal until the end of the century, although ownership was not a criminal offence. The UK was the only member state of the European Union, who prohibits the private imports of adult pornography by consumers traveling from other European countries. The country was covered by the 1978 act, which proscribes creation, allocating, screening the impolite photographs or videos to someone under the age of 18. This law was introduced in the U.K. because of the fear of child pornography. The 1978 Act was extended via the 1994 act specifically provides protection to the “pseudo-photographs” (images to appear as photographs). The Sexual Offences Act, 2003 had amended the age of the citizens for sexual offences. The act had applied to the age of 18 years instead of 16 years. The sexual images of citizens below 18 years of age had been criminalized by the 2009 amendment.
The word ‘indecent images of children’ or ‘child (sexual) abuse images’ are generally termed as “child pornography” in the United Kingdom.
The cyberspace customers in the United Kingdom are proscribed for accessing a range of websites by defaults, viz., they have their own internet access filtered by the ISPs. A voluntary code of practice agreed by the major ISPs states that customers have to opt-out for the ISP filtering to gain access to the blocked content.
2. Indian Aspect in Pornography
According to the Porn Hub Data- India is the 3rd most porn-watching country in the world. The average visit duration on the website for traffic originating from India is 9 min and 30 sec, above the world average of 9 min and 20 sec.
The Indian Penal Code, 1860, was written at those times when the internet was not even conceived. As such, it does deal with porn and related aspects except for section 354A.
The phrase ‘pornography’ was argued in several sections of immorality. It’s related to the rise in the crime rates that includes sexual harassment and rapes. It’s connected to the proliferation of child trafficking and related to the general mindset of the favoritism of porn among the citizens of India. It is criminalized under section 292 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. The Supreme Court of India executed the temporary ban on the 857 porn websites in India. The ban on pornography is not only a moral obligation but legal also. Within the 24 hours of the ban, the Government uplifts the ban on porn websites it is the temporary relief for the addicted ones. The reason behind the uplifting ban was, it violates Article 21. The Department of Telecommunication order says that content hosted by porn sites relates to morality and decency and therefore, subject to, a reasonable restriction on the fundamental right to the freedom of speech and expression. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) was enacted by the legislature to a robust legal framework to protect children from sexual assault, sexual harassment, and pornography offences while safeguarding the minor’s interest at each stage of the court process. The Act is gender-neutral for the children and the accused.
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The cyber cell or the appropriate authority should routinely check the unauthorized services allowed by the people to access the blocked content with the help of Virtual Private Network (VPNs).
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It should be punishable if someone uses the VPN for committing serious offences.
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As VPNs are good in nature but the content available through VPN should be filtered by the appropriate authority if they want to stop the Indian web users from the access of the blocked content through VPN.
The horrifying aspect of new-age reality was Child Pornography. To restrict the menace of child pornography the laws have been enforced in the territory. The law can only impose punishment but actual change and finishing this problem can be evicted only by bringing changes at the grassroots level. The right parental technique is the most important way to curb out the menace of child pornography from society. It puts the life of the young and innocent children at risk, who without knowing the perils ends up on the internet. To protect the child from the terrors of pornography can seem like insurmountable work. The foremost step to help the children of appropriate age to recognize the threat it presents to not only them but also to the social whole. The major tech companies and social media sites Google and Facebook had started with blocking and filtering the many keywords related to child pornography, curbing the menace. The word child porn on Google had banned the sites and it shows the warning sign on the website whenever who searches for it. This service had been extended to the messengers like WhatsApp as well, which are used by children and teenagers. It is the foremost step to keep children safe from its menace. The parents should have a healthy dialogue with their child and help them to identify the wrongs in their steps and also teach the safe words to him/her. The parents have much responsibility on them to protect their child from the menace of child pornography. Parents should monitor their child how they are using social media.
In India, the Right to Privacy has been recognized as a fundamental right by the apex court. The Indian Legislature dealing with obscenity has been upheld as valid under Art. 19(2) of the Indian Constitution which allows the State to impose reasonable restrictions on the Right to Freedom of Speech and expression on the ground of inter alia public order, decency, and morality. This approach of the legislature and the judiciary has completely failed to demonstrate private use and enjoyment of pornographic material violates public decency and morality. The state has also failed to demonstrate the inherent immorality of sexual expression and sexual stimulation through pornographic works. The Legislation abrogated individual’s freedom and autonomy in their treatment of sexually explicit material, that is, bringing everything under the umbrella of ‘obscenity’ without differentiating between public and private consumption of such material or the content of such material which usually ranges from the sexual eroticism, obscenity, pornography, violent and demeaning pornography or child pornography. This guarantee seems to be exhausted when we came with the talk of ‘revenge porn’.
Viewing any content on the internet is not usually a crime in India unless it is of grave nature like that of child porn, which is even backed by the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of Children or Child Prostitution or Pornography. It has been pretty liberal in this aspect and has been more vigilant on blocking websites\’ hosts rather than restricting users.
A loophole in the situation was Virtual Private Network to bypass the restriction. Though simply using a VPN is legal, using it for the purpose of doing an illegal activity may be illegal. It is ambiguous whether accessing a site blocked by the government by VPN is illegal or not. It needs further development in the coming time.
-Shrey Tandon
Amity Law School, Noida
References
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The Regulation of Pornography and Child Pornography on the Internet; Yaman Akdeniz, Faculty of Law, Istanbul Bilgi University https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=41684
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Legalization of Prostitution in India; By Yashi Verma http://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-3392-legalization-of-prostitution-in-india.html
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India under Lockdown turns into porn; By: Aman Rawat https://inc42.com/buzz/locked-up-india-flocks-to-pornhub-with-95-rise-in-traffic/
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An article on order of the DOT authority on the pornographic content- by anonymous user https://sflc.in/dot-orders-blockage-porn-websites
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An article on the “Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children,child prostitution and child pornography”. https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/opsccrc.aspx
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