Pornhub Blames Indian Govt For Drop In Traffic

With the Indian government blocking access to as many 827 porn websites in 2018, which continued into 2019, Pornhub has reported that India has lost its third-place ranking in terms of traffic to the site. As per the website’s seventh annual report, India fell 12 places to the 15th position.

Pornhub laid some of the blame for the decline in traffic on the Indian government, saying, “As Japan moved up, the United Kingdom moved down to third, while India moved down 12 positions from its previous third-place position in 2018 partly due to the Indian government blocking access to some porn sites.”

Pornhub’s annual report highlighted the US is the largest traffic provider, followed by Japan, UK, Canada, France, and Germany. Moreover, the top 20 countries generate 79% of the total traffic on Pornhub.

In October 2017, the central government’s Department of Telecom (DoT) had asked the internet service providers to ban 827 websites for hosting child pornography. However, most of the websites listed to be taken down had strict policies against child pornography.

This was after four class XII students allegedly gang-raped a class X student in Dehradun. Upon investigation, it was revealed that the students had watched a porn clip before allegedly committing the crime. To prevent such cases again, the Indian government decided to send a notice to ISPs and telcos, following an order by the Uttarakhand High Court.

However, while two of the largest telecom and internet service providers in India — Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel — have taken down most porn websites on their network in many telecom circles, 91% of Indians still visit the Pornhub from their mobile phones. In addition, Pornhub’s report notes that India has the largest proportion of millennials visiting the site making up 85% of the traffic generated by the country.

Many porn websites, including Pornhub, found a loophole and developed various proxy websites to stay in touch with one of their biggest markets — India.