VLC Media Player blocked in India and here’s what the govt said on the ban
India Today
After reports of the VLC ban came to light, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) filed an RTI (Right to Information) in June with the department of telecom (DoT) seeking the reason behind the ban.
VLC Media Player, developed by VideoLAN, has been banned in India. In fact, the company commenting on India Today Tech’s article said that the platform was banned on February 13 and they do not know the reason why. The company is still clueless about why VLC has been banned without any prior notice.
After reports of the VLC ban came to light, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) filed an RTI (Right to Information) in June with the department of telecom (DoT) seeking the reason behind the ban.
As per some of the latest tweets by IFF, DoT transferred RTI to Meity or the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology, which replied on July 14 without providing any clarity on the reason of VLC ban. Meity reportedly said that “No information is available [with MeitY]”.
According to IFF’s tweets they “sought information on the grounds on which videolan[dot]org has been blocked for access in India and whether any hearing opportunity was provided to the website owners before the website was blocked for access in India.” Unfortunately, all they got as a response is just a line that didn’t mean state the reason. IFF said that it they “have filed the first appeal on this response, arguing that it is illegal and demonstrates non-application of mind.”
While we still do not know the exact reason behind the ban, some media reports suggest that the platform has been because it was used by China-backed hacking group Cicada for cyber attacks a few months ago. Notably, the blocked VLC Media Play website shows “the website has been blocked as per order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information technology under IT Act, 2000” message. The act deals with the primary law in India dealing with cybercrime and electronic commerce.
It should be noted that the Indian govt has blocked the official website and download link of VLC. This means the platform is still working for people who have the software installed on their devices. That’s because “VLC works perfectly” without their servers, the company said. “We don’t collect info, we don’t require user accounts, we don’t spy on people (telemetry). So once you have VLC, you don’t need our servers, for it to work,” the company said in one of its latest tweets.
Currently, there is no clarity on why the website has been banned in India, but we expect to get some concrete details from the government soon.
