Reliance Jio blocks Soundcloud and Telegram after porn sites

Back in October 2018, the Department of Telecom (DoT)asked all the telecom providers to block more than 800-porn-related websites. India also attempted to ban porn in 2015 but was forced to lift it. According to the reports, the telecom operators have banned VPN (virtual private network) and proxy sites, torrent sites. Now the report claims that Reliance Jio has also blocked access to Soundcloud as well as Telegram's website.

According to Internet Freedom Foundation(IFF), over 135 such complaints have been listed. IFF is an activist group which advocates the right to privacy on the internet.

IFF claimed that blocking platforms for messaging and entertainment is an attack on Right to Information, and violation of net neutrality.

There are many Indian Redditors who have posted against this act and called it outrageous. Reddit users wrote, " This is outrageous. They have blocked hide.me, vpnbook.com and whoer.net/webproxy. Sometimes using https solves the issue. But my question is what's next to be banned? They have already banned porn along with normal websites like behance.net and collegehumor.com. This is moral policing."

"Many websites include SoundCloud audio clips as part of their web pages like a YouTube video," one respondent from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, said.

However, it is not clear when the department of telecommunication have asked telcos to block Soundcloud, Telegram, or proxy sites. Moreover, we don't even know the reason behind the banning of entertainment websites.

Source