Pornography is widely viewed across the world and a lot of adult film actors are also known to rise to success owing to a large fan base. Asian countries including India and Pakistan are among the top most viewers when it comes to porn as internet access has made it easier for people to watch porn.
While access to porn has been such that ministers have been caught watching porn in the assembly and porn has “accidentally” been broadcasted on bus-stops and traffic signals among other places, viewers in Asian countries were shocked by being suddenly blocked from accessing porn sites.
The reason for this was Iran, as the country’s government blocked porn sites using the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) hijacking, which diverts users away from pages they try to access.
Since Iran’s censorship also affects data transit in the region, users in Russia, Hong Kong and India among others were unable to watch porn on 256 sites. It’s not clear if this was intended since BGP isn’t used for domestic censorship.
