Faced with severe criticism, the Centre on Tuesday revoked the ban on pornographic sites except those with child pornographic content.

In a fresh notice issued to Internet service providers, seen by BusinessLine , the Department of Telecom said the operators are free to unblock the websites except those with child pornographic content. The notice, however, does not specify the number or names of sites that have such objectionable content.

An industry expert said that while it is good that the government has taken back its initial order to block 857 websites, the onus of establishing which sites are safe to be unblocked has been left to individual operators.

“The Internet operator is in no position to know which sites have child pornography. The government should think this through and issue guidelines which can be implemented to address the issue,” said a Delhi-based telecom company.

The Department of Telecom’s order to ban over 850 porn websites had come under severe criticism from users, Internet activists and telecom companies. While users and Internet activists termed it a violation of personal liberties, telecom operators are worried about its impact on their revenues.

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