Government bans 18 OTT platforms due to obscene content

The Indian Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) has blocked 18 over-the-top (OTT) platforms for broadcasting content characterized as obscene, vulgar, and in certain cases, pornographic. The government has also blocked 19 websites, 10 applications—7 of which are hosted on Google’s Play Store and 3 on Apple’s App Store—and 57 social media accounts linked to these platforms, effectively restricting their access within the country.

Following the consultation “with other Ministries/Departments of the Government of India, and domain experts specialising in media and entertainment, women's rights, and child rights,”, the ban has been imposed under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The platforms that are banned are Dreams Films, Voovi, Yessma, Uncut Adda, Tri Flicks, X Prime, Neon X VIP, Besharams, Hunters, Rabbit, Xtramood, Nuefliks, MoodX, Mojflix, Hot Shots VIP, Fugi, Chikooflix, and Prime Play.   

The government said, “A significant portion of the content hosted on these platforms was found to be obscene, vulgar, and portrayed women in a demeaning manner”. Commenting on the nature of the content available on these platforms, the government said, “It depicted nudity and sexual acts in various inappropriate contexts, such as relationships between teachers and students, incestuous family relationships, etc.” 

These platforms were also showing content that included sexual innuendos and, in some instances, prolonged segments of pornographic and sexually explicit scenes devoid of any thematic or societal relevance.

The banned platforms were very popular among the viewers. One of the banned OTT platforms had more than one crore downloads and two others have over 50 lakh downloads on the Google Play Store.