A friend of mine told me that porn is the most popular form of entertainment. About PornHub we can say that this is an international center for the supply of pornography, the resource offers porn for every taste, color and ... yes, size. Users appreciate it. Attendance for 2018 amounted to 33.5 billion (!) Unique. About 92 million people visit this resource per day. Slightly smaller population of Germany or exactly two of Spain.
Not in all countries PornHub is available. And this is a problem, because for a fan of the resource to be on vacation, for example, in Malaysia and lose access is extremely unpleasant. Under the cut is a list of countries in which PornHub is blocked. Forewarned is forearmed. And no, of course, this is not an appeal to circumvent these prohibitions.
Where and why is PornHub blocked?
In the vast majority of states where porn is prohibited, PornHub is also blocked. Here is a list of countries where, according to Wikipedia , any kind of online porn is banned. For some countries, details of the lock are indicated; for others, additional information is not available.
Bangladesh
In this country, the government has taken the prohibition of online porn very seriously. It cannot be distributed, offered to anyone, exchanged and watched. You can get up to 10 years in prison and a serious fine, approximately $ 6.5 thousand.
China
In China, online pornography has been outlawed since 2002. At first, this concerned only the sale of content and filming, but then everything related to pornography was banned. Since 2010, the country's authorities have blocked more than 60 thousand porn sites, arresting about 5,000 people who were suspected of organizing studio shootings of porn and simply spreading “strawberries”.
Egypt
Here, porn sites began to block since 2009. The providers responsible for filtering the content did not show much zeal, so the ban was repeated in 2012 and then 2015. Some Internet companies blocked porn, some didn’t. Most seriously, the government began to act about a year ago . Then, overnight, Internet users in the country lost access to 9 major 10 out of 10 porn sites, including PornHub. But workarounds have been found. In just a few months, PornHub showed statistics according to which there are more users from Egypt on the site than users from any other country in the Middle East.
India
Distribution of pornographic materials in this country is illegal and is punishable by a prison term of up to 20 years. Starting in 2015, the rules on pornography, including online, were constantly tightened, until in October 2018 the government decided to finally ban 827 porn sites, including PornHub .
Nepal
Here, the legislation governing the Internet was relatively lenient with regard to online porn, but only until recently. Since the fall of 2018, the government decided to block access to all “strawberry” sites for its citizens. By October 12, 2018, providers blocked about 21 thousand of such resources.
Pakistan
In 2010, search engines received the most “sex requests” from this country. Probably, the government of the country, which ordered to block more than 1000 porn sites, did not like it. Online strawberry banned in Pakistan so far.
Sudan
Here you can get a term not only for selling porn or creating porn films, but also for watching “strawberries”. So it’s better not to try to break the ban.
Turkmenistan
From January 1, 2015 online porn in this country is prohibited .
Uganda
Here they began to fight pornography in 2009. Gradually, the sale, distribution, and shooting of porn fell under the ban. A few years ago, online porn, including PornHub, was completely banned. The authorities argued that the blocking is that porn is dangerous for families, single people and society as a whole.
And a number of states for which details about blocking porn are missing. Here, “strawberry” is prohibited in any form, so it’s better not to risk trying to open access to pleasures:
Bahrain;
Butane;
Guyana;
Gaza Strip;
Indonesia;
Iran;
Kuwait;
Malaysia;
Mali
Myanmar
North Korea;
Oman;
Papua New Guinea;
Qatar;
Saudi Arabia;
Singapore - many porn sites, including PornHub, do not work here;
South Korea;
Sri Lanka;
Syria;
Thailand;
Turkey;
UAE;
Yemen.
NB! In countries where porn is prohibited, but there are hotels in the Marriott, Hillton and some other chains, you can request a “strawberry” directly in your room - in the sense that the TV is connected to porn channels on satellite TV. Showing pornography to guests in some countries brings hotels up to 70% of the revenue from room orders . The authorities look at this violation of local law through their fingers.
And what about Russia?
Back in 2015, Roskomnadzor blocked 11 porn sites, including the Russian-language version of PornHub. The reason is the presence on the sites of information that is harmful to the health and development of children. The international version of PornHub remained open until 2016.
But in 2016, authorities blocked not only PornHub, but YouPorn as well. Sites were entered into the register of prohibited information on September 13, 2016. The next day, the providers closed access.
The decision to block PornHub was made by the Buturlinovsky District Court of the Voronezh Region. The reason is “a ban on the dissemination of information about the circulation of pornographic materials or objects on the specified site”. Officials considered that the resource has a negative effect on the birth rate in the Russian Federation.
Interestingly, from a legal point of view, the blocking was legal. Roskomsvoboda lawyer Sarkis Darbinyan stated that article 242 of the Criminal Code of Russia provides for a ban on the distribution, public demonstration or advertising of pornographic materials or objects among children. “Therefore, any distribution of porn on the network is considered illegal in our country, since according to prosecutors and courts, this allows minors to have access to these materials,” Darbinyan commented on the situation .
The adjudicator upheld this view. He said that he does not remember all the circumstances of the case, but believes that the resource was blocked due to the lack of protection from children.
PornHub even offered Roskomnadzor an unlimited account to solve the problem with blocking, but department officials were proud to say that “they’re not selling Russian demographics.”
A year later, in April 2017, the international version of PorHub was unblocked , leaving the lock active for the Russian site. Plus there was a "child protection" - when you try to enter the Russian user’s site, PornHub shows a window asking you to enter the user's date of birth.
Russian site is still on the black list
In addition, PornHub ordered users from the Russian Federation to log in through Vkontakte when entering the site, justifying the innovation by the need to check the age of the visitor. During authorization, the site requested general data from the profile. And the question, in fact, is very serious.
This year, programmer Daniil Suvorov created a bot that allowed Vkontakte users to check which of their friends on the social network are authorized on PornHub with their account. However, after Vkontakte removed the users.isAppUser API method used by Suvorov, the bot stopped working. But no one knows when there will be another leak or a hole in the API.
The good news is that you don’t have to log in to PornHub with Vkontakte authorization. And complex technical skills are not required for this. It is enough to use browser plugins for filtering ads and block their message.
Amazing move
Or enable VPN by selecting a server from a European country or the USA for operation. In this case, the site simply opens without unnecessary inconvenience. Another plus option with a VPN - the method will work not only on a computer, but also on a smartphone, router, TV.
Actually, folks, that's all for today. It would be even more interesting to know in which countries, where your friends have been, have PornHub or porn been blocked? And what methods did they use to gain access to the forbidden?