CYBERPORN HITS INDIA

Multiple computers make a computer network. Interlinked by high speed data communic- ation links, the purpose of a computer network is to share the resources of all the host computers (or sites) among various users who are connected by the network. ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency Network) was one of the first computer networks that made interlinking of various computers technically feasible. Interlinking was usually made by standard or fibre optic cables, microwaves and satellites. Now-a-days, interlinking of geographically isolated networks has been culminated into formation of larger or global network systems.

 On the demand side, there has been a tremendous growth in transmission of large volumes of texts and images regarding science, technology, medicine, religion, politics or any subject under the sun. Global networks are also supporting teleconferences, electronic mail and other means of online communication. Internet is the largest computer network of the world having innumerable sites and nearly 4 million subscribers distributed over 140 countries. There is no doubt that, Internet is helping a lot by providing an enormous store-house and a vast market place  for up-to-date information and helpful ideas of all sorts to its subscribers, but the inner story is that, it has also kept a slot open for pornographic texts and images. For example, Usenet, a local network operating in USA, represents only 11.5 per cent of total traffic on Internet and the pornographic material represent merely 3 per cent of all the information available from the Usenet.

 Usually online porn contains images not found in an average magazine; for example, nude photos of young men and women, or images of sexual acts, sadomasochism etc. Computer pornography differs in the way that one can obtain it in the privacy of one’s home. More importantly, one can download only the desired portion of the file rather than to buy an entire magazine or a video cassette. A research team of the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has carried out an exhaustive study on computer pornography and has published the results last year under the title “Marketing Pornography on the Information Superhighway”.

             The study disclosed that the Usenet newsgroup has so far digitized and stored 917,410 pornographic images, descriptions, short stories and film clips and this stockpile is immensely popular, as well as the most sought after source of recreation among the users. It has also been found that at least 70 per cent of porn images provided by the Usenet originate from Bulletin Board System or BBS, whose operators allure customers to their own collections at a monthly subscription ranging from $30.

             Throughout the world today, young generation, mostly teenagers, are getting closewr to computers and becoming experts on this subject and these young people are being exposed to this menace. In some cases, kids are too young to make sense of what they see, when a pornographic image is displayed on the computer screen. In Europe and America, every school, college and library is linked to Internet and hence most children in these countries are becoming victims of on-line porn. Saudi Arabia has already started keeping Internet access under tight control and even the super-tolerant France has started paying attention to it. But due to the global nature of Internet, it is not legally possible for a single country to legislate an act to control its operation. 

            Inspite of above difficulties, Senators James Exon and Dan Coats of the US introduced a revision of the existing law called the “Communication Decency Act” (CDA), initiating a debate in the US Senate in July last year. The said revision, popularly known as the Exon Bill, proposed an imposition of a fine up to $100,000 and a prison term up to two years on anyone who knowingly makes indecent material available to children under 18 years of age. In their original proposal, Mr. Exon and Mr. Coats sought for a criminal prosecution against those on-line service providers who allow obscene communications pass through their system. But later on they had to amend the bill after receiving criticism from various quarters, especially by replacing the word “obscene” with “indecent”. 

            The main criticism came from America’s civil right activists who argued that, since Internet is neither a print medium like books and periodicals, nor a broadcast medium like radio or television, it cannot be subjected to any sort of government control. Most surprisingly, Mr. Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the American House of Representatives, during a television interview in July last year, denounced the the bill and said, “It is clearly a violation of the freedom of speech and a violation of the right of adults to communicate with each other”. 

However, after hot debates President Bill Clinton has put his signature on this bill, after it was passed by the American Congress. But according to legal experts, the act is unable to withstand the scrutiny of even a misdemeanour court since from the legal point of view it is very difficult, rather impossible to draw a sharp line of demarcation between decency and indecency. Internet, on the other hand, declared the day a “Black Thursday” and circulated a message to its subscribers on black background (see box).  

            Meanwhile, in the first week of January, 1996, prosecutors in Munich asked CompuServe, the second largest computer network of the world, to stop letting German subscribers see 200 discussion and picture database that, according to Bavarian court, violated German pornographic laws and Internet obviously described it as an attack on free flow of online information. Since 1995, the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) has started providing Internet access to Indian computer operators against a subscription Rs 5,000 for non-graphic files and Rs 16,000 for graphic files. Thr above subscription enables an ordinary operator to use a VSNL channel for 250 hours and nearly 2000 Indian operators have so far obtained Internet access via VSNL in three major cities of Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai. 

            Usually Internet lures its customers for various hot, as well as restricted sites, which can only be used by paying extra money and this extra money is collected from the user through his telephone bill. Many Internet sites have a list of telephone numbers for having spicy conversations. Presently, some sites have started offering porn-images known as virtual pornography, generated entirely by software. 

            Though the number of Internet subscribers is very small in India, online sex related material is becoming easily available. Besides that, compact discs (CDs) with pornographic content, usually of foreign origin, are also becoming freely available. One can easily gauge the danger of privately providing these information to young adolescent people.