This Indian App Is Trying to Fight Porn - Here's How

The app is designed to play devotional songs and motivational speeches whenever a user tries to access websites containing pornography, violence and other vulgar content.

Har Har Mahadev has been developed by Vijay Nath Mishra, a professor at the Institute of Medical Sciences of Banaras Hindu University. The name of the app has been derived from a common chant used to invoke Lord Shiva, one of the principal deities in Hinduism.

While the app only plays Hindu hymns at present, the creator has revealed that he intends to make songs of other faiths like Islam available on the app, so as not to exclude any religious community.

In the near future Har Har Mahadev will have speeches from inspirational personalities like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as well.

The app, which acts as a filtering service, currently recognises and blocks over 3,800 websites.

The beta version of the app can be installed on laptops and desktops from harharmahadev.co. The app will soon be available for android devices.

The Indian government has continuously made attempts to curb porn in the country, but to little effect. Statistics say that about 35%–40% percent of total daily content downloaded in India is pornography. Shockingly, most of it is related to child pornography.

According to market analysis firm Vidooly, viewing of adult content on smartphones has increased to 75% in India. Slashing of data rates by top mobile network companies and the affordability of 3G- and 4G-enabled smartphones have been cited as the major reasons leading to this rise.

Data released in 2014 by Pornhub, one of the world’s largest adult websites, showed that India ranked as the fifth country on its list of top daily visitors.

The Indian government had earlier tried to ban 857 porn websites in 2015, including Pornhub. However, protests about censorship and moral policing forced the government to lift it.