By P. Karunakharan, IANS,
Colombo : To protect children from internet pornography, Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa has directed the country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) to immediately filter all websites containing obscene and pornography materials.
A government statement here said the president has recognised the “serious threat posed” to the children in the country as a result of unrestricted access to the websites meant for adults and wanted to bring in restrictions against this with immediate effect.
“With the wide expansion of access to the internet there has been increasing concern about the exposure of children to obscene and pornographic material over the past few years,” the statement said.
Accordingly, TRC has directed internet service providers to filter websites featuring obscene and phonographic and sexually explicit materials.
It, however, said that if an adult wishes to have “unrestricted access to the internet”, the service may be obtained from an internet service provider in a password protected manner “after making a payment”.
“The user (who gets the unrestricted internet access on payment) will be responsible for use of the service in a responsible manner and should ensure the filtered websites are not accessible to children,” the statement said.
It is not immediately known how the TRC would implement this special presidential order as there are thousands of private internet cafes in almost all parts of the country.