Here’s How India’s Porn Ban Has Boosted Porn Searches

The Government banned 857 websites for carrying pornographic content. Did that deter Indians from watching porn?

The ban of pornographic websites in India has worked in a way possibly unimagined by the policy makers. (Photo: iStock)

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The Department of Telecommunications, Government of India, on July 28 ordered the Internet Service Providers to block access to 857 websites hosting pornographic content.

The move has come under tremendous criticism from internet users and activists. The ban was aimed to disallow people from surfing pornographic content, but a quick look at Google Trends showed a different story altogether.

Google Trends, which records the keywords its users are searching for, explicitly displays that interest levels in porn has shot up extensively in this month. Keywords such as ‘Sunny Leone’ show a surge of 2,050%.

India has the fifth largest porn viewing audience in the world, 25% of whom are women. With such a large, and dedicated audience, a ban is just a minor hurdle. The numbers do the talking.