Towards this end, the government has ordered strict ban on displaying of porn sites across the country and has even banned many in the first week of October 2018.

Continuing its ire against such sites, Nepal Government has so far called for a shutdown of more than 21,000 sites that are displaying porn content, informed the Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA).

NTA has been acting on the direction of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to ban distribution, sharing and broadcasting of such content through any medium, and the latest update on 21,000 sites is one in that direction.

As per the reports, Nepal has around 100 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) operating in the country.

While the government started crack-down of such sites, the Internet Association of Nepal had earlier commented that the government should instead focus on prosecuting the accused found to be involved in rape and other violence cases against women, locally.

NTA began its mission of banning such sites starting from September 24, 2018 in line with the government directives.

Will have to wait and watch how many more such illicit sites will come under NTA scan!

Its noteworthy here that Nepal Government’s decision gains special importance in view of the ongoing #MeToo campaign against violence and other illicit acts concerning women, globally.

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The government is coming up with the ‘net neutrality’ policy to be considered while issuing licenses to local telecom operators and Internet Service Providers (ISP).

The new policy upon implementation will regulate the way ISPs deliver services with regard to speed-based discrimination and pricing of internet traffic.

This decision makes Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA) second such authority in South Asia after India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to formulate such a policy that enforces regulation for fairness in internet service delivery.

Nepal is consulting TRAI for finalization of the policy.

Why Net Neutrality in Nepal?

Net neutrality is the policy that mandates ISPs to ensure fairness in all the services they deliver across web-based platforms.

Though the concept of net neutrality has been under discussion across the globe, Nepal Government is coming up with such legal framework for the first time in its history. Till date, Nepal has no legal rules protecting the existing net neutrality process.

At the start of 2018, NTA opined that ‘net neutrality’ is not a serious concern for Nepal, however changed its decision after some local ISPs reported violation of net neutrality creating the need for the same.

Nepal’s move towards such policy gains significance in view of the growing demand for the same, globally.

On a global scale, TRAI and European Regulators of Electronic Communications have signed a deal for exchange of information on net neutrality, and the United States has also recently reviewed protection of its net neutrality policy upon demands from the activists and local legislatures.

NTA will soon make the regulation public, NTA Spokesperson Min Prasad Aryal said in a statement.

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