Varsha Tandon, Jindal Global Law School
ABSTRACT
Ever since the pandemic took over, our daily news became more and more shocking while accompanying the rise in the number of COVID-19 positive cases. However, there is one particular issue which may have had a more serious and haunting impact our lives and especially children of our country – the rise in the demand, upload and download of child pornography since the lockdown commenced, as per the reports of website giants such as Pornhub. The reports from Pornhub showed a 95 per cent hike in searches/activities relating to child pornography in March’2020 alone, which were basically the early days of the lockdown.1 A spokesperson of ICPF acknowledged the concern regarding such targeting of children through online platforms given the increased internet usage during the period and concluded that the pornography websites by streaming such content is violating Indian laws and policies while simply “playing hide-and-seek” by changing URLs upon getting identified and blocked by government and the ISPAI.2 The SC in the past had suggested the government to come up with ways to block child pornography while strictly stating that their rights do not extend to prohibiting pornographic content in general as that would amount to a violation of certain freedom rights under Indian Constitution.3 This paper examines and analyzes various discussions and solutions to curb this problem of restricting child pornography while dealing with the conflict regarding where and how should the line be drawn to decide the realms of morality and law within the context of the pornography rights.
