The last few months have left many filmmakers fuming with the Censor Board’s interference in every film in some way or the other. When about two months ago, even after 56 cuts, the Board didn’t allow the TV premiere of National Award winning movie The Dirty Picture, it left the film fraternity in rage.

More recently, Ekta Kapoor reacted strongly when the trailers of her recent production Kya Super Cool Hain Hum was asked to be chopped by the Censor Board.
Ekta reportedly said that the officials had double standards.
And when everyone was huffing about the “unmindful decisions” of the Censor Board, filmmaker Pooja Bhatt made a smart move. Instead of complying with the Censor Board’s order to pare adult content from the trailer of her upcoming film Jism2, she chose to release the promos on Twitter that “cannot be adulterated”. Along with the trailer, a song and raunchy posters of the film were also released on the Internet.
At a time, when youngsters, even those below 18, are surfing the Internet most of the time, does censoring stuff on TV help in any way?
Experts think that censorship is of no use, as they would find the censored items somewhere on the Internet. And keeping a check on that or censoring items on the Web is next to impossible.
Cyber law expert Pavan Duggal says that it is extremely difficult to stop access to or censor anything on the Internet. “What a specific country can do is to block certain websites within certain jurisdictions by directing the ISPs. However, blocking is a non-effective scenario as it regenerates curiosity and thereby increases Internet traffic for that site,” he remarks.
According to Duggal, the age verification system also doesn’t help. “The age verification system does not work in India and even outside. One can easily pose as an 18-year-old even when in reality one is an eight-year-old,” he says and adds whatever is uploaded on the Internet once, always remains there, it never gets deleted.
Young filmmaker and tech freak Allison Patel thinks that the Censor Board works illogically. “Why do they censor only films? There is already too much adult content on TV that needs to be censored. It just shows the double standards of the Board,” he says, as he talks about his film ? that was given an A-certificate. “When our movie was being watched by the Censor Board officials, they asked us to cut some words that are generally used in reality shows,” he says.
But not one to be perturbed, Allison and his friend Yash Dave, released the movie on Youtube.com simultaneously. He says that it worked fine.

Allison says youngsters like him need to promote themselves really well and the Internet platform works for them.
Abhishek Sinha, a management professional, thinks that in some time filmmakers would make the most of the Internet. He says, “There’s no use in this partial censorship. Children today are very smart and they know where to find the uncensored items. If the Censor Board really wants children to be away from adult content, then they should look for a better option.”
Interestingly, the Censor Board seems to be in no mood to discuss things.
When we contacted, Leela Samson, chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, declined to even comment on the issue.
However, experts think that exposure to sleazy content can only be stopped through proper parental guidance and instilling good family values.