Porn buffs defy moral firewalls

KATHMANDU, June 12 -- Despite the August 2010 Home Ministry ban on pornographic websites in Nepal, the number of Nepali internet users surfing pornographic contents online has not dwindled.

Currently, the number of porn content seekers on Google-the most popular search engine-stands at a staggering growth rate of over 140 percent.

A Google application called "Google Insights", meant to keep an account of the most searched for contents, reveals that most Google surfers in Nepal seek pictures and wallpapers of "hot" models, actors and other obscene material.

According to the data, searches for images in Nepal since 2008 are mostly related to sex, obscenity and other vulgar material, which have not gone down even after the government's ban on some websites.

"As directed by the government, we blocked some particular pornographic websites," said Binay Bohora, chairman of the Internet Service Providers' Association of Nepal (ISPAN). "But, there may be thousands of other such sites that are not in our knowledge. People who

are really fond of visiting such sites cannot be controlled by

the blocking of a few pornographic sites."

Google states the searches are often done with titles such as "hot babes", "beautiful girls", "cute hotties", "sexy models wallpapers" and "bollywood babes".

While searches related to "hot materials" and other obscene content are growing by 140 percent, searches for cartoon images and other photos are at just around 58 percent.

Similarly, searches related to logos, world maps and other descent contents are only about 35 percent.

Searches for "hot bollywood actresses" have also become common among Nepalis. The growth rate of search related to Bollywood stuff is constant with about 60 percent since 2008.

However, Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif is an exception with searches related to her growing at an astounding rate of 300 percent.

Data also show the demand for images of Korean models has escalated in the recent times. While Korean girls' images were sought after at a growth rate of 20 percent in 2008, the figure crossed 130 percent this year.

Searches for naked and vulgar images have also rocketed to around 90 percent in the last few years.

Images and pictures of "hot Nepali models" and "Nepali nude" are also in demand on Google. The growth rate of searches for Nepali nude materials is above 120 percent.

However, despite the ISPAN concern that blocking some websites cannot control the trend of "sex-related internet surfing", Inspector Chandra Singh Dhami at Cyber Crime Cell under the Metropolitan Police Crime Division claims blocking such sites is still the best way to keep obscene contents on internet out of the people's reach.

"ISPAN and the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) have not been cooperating with us to the fullest," he said, adding that all the websites were blocked at the recommendation of the police.

"We gave them the list of websites that we had tracked down," Dhami said. "ISPAN and the NTA can track down and block hundreds of other sites but they don't. They block the website only when we recommend."

Published by HT Syndication with permission from EKantipur.com.

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