“We´ve blocked 60 sites, both foreign and Nepali, after verifying them,” Kailash Prasad Neupane, Spokesperson for the NTA said. [break]
Although NTA has received hundreds of emails from people naming the sites, it doesn´t seem much enthusiastic in blocking the sites. “We´ve taken it as a social responsibility,” Neupane said. “There´s no need to be jubilant,” he said.
“We can´t completely ban these sites. However, we can reduce the trend, especially among youths, of spending most of their time on the internet watching porn,” Neupane said.
Neupane believes internet users will spend time doing research and creative works on the web once the pornographic sites are banned.
NTA will regularly monitor these sites, Neupane said. The ban is aimed at discouraging youths spending most of their time in cyber cafes watching porn.
Most of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have opted for URL based filtering, Binaya Bohora, president of Internet Service Providers´ Association of Nepal (ISPAN) said.
“We had received 60 such sites from NTA and have blocked all of them.
As of now, our firewall can block the sites.
However, as the load increases, we´ll have to upgrade our servers,” Bohora said. The banned sites display no content. However, since the ban is done only by the ISPs of Nepal, anyone using another ISP can view the blocked sites, Om Bikram Thapa, chief technical officer at ISPAN said.
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