The government of India has blocked 18 OTT platforms, 19 websites, 10 apps, and 57 social media handles of OTT platforms for publishing obscene, vulgar, and, in some instances, pornographic content. The action has been taken by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) in coordination with various intermediaries.
The ban has been imposed under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 following consultation “with other Ministries/Departments of the Government of India, and domain experts specialising in media and entertainment, women's rights, and child rights,” as per a release by the ministry.
The name of the banned OTT platforms include 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.
Banned OTT platforms were also very popular among their viewers. One of the banned OTT apps gained more than 1 crore downloads, while two others had over 50 lakh downloads on the Google Play Store. In addition to this, these platforms also utilised social media to disseminate trailers, specific scenes, and external links to attract audiences to their websites and apps. The social media accounts of these platforms have a cumulative followership of over 32 lakh users.
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