The government of India bans VLC Media Player in India. Here's what it says

• Image Credit: Google

• Aug 18, 2022 | Poonam Nath

The Internet Freedom Foundation, in response to rumors of the VLC ban, submitted an RTI request to the Department of Telecom in June seeking an explanation for the restriction.

Digital Desk: India has outlawed the VideoLAN product VLC Media Player. In fact, the businesses that left a comment on an article by India Today Tech claimed that the platform was prohibited on February 13 and that they were unsure of the cause. The company is still unsure of the reasons behind the sudden ban on VLC.

The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), in response to rumors of the VLC ban, submitted an RTI (Right to Information) request to the Department of Telecom (DoT) in June seeking an explanation for the restriction.

According to some recent tweets by IFF, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), to whom the DoT referred the RTI, responded on July 14 without elaborating on the rationale behind the VLC restriction. No information is accessible [with MeitY], according to Meity.

"Sought information on the grounds on which videolan[dot]org has been prohibited for access in India and whether any hearing chance was provided to the website owners before the website was stopped for access in India," said one of IFF's tweets. 

Unfortunately, all they received in return was a paragraph that didn't actually explain the situation. According to IFF, they "have filed the first appeal on this response, contending that it is unlawful and exhibits non-application of mind."

Even while the precise cause of the suspension is still unknown, certain media reports cite Cicada's usage of the site for recent cyberattacks as the reason. Cicada is a hacking outfit supported by China. 

Notably, the blocked VLC Media Play website displays a notification stating that it has been blocked following a decision made by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology according to the IT Act, 2000. The act deals with the main legislation governing electronic transactions and cybercrime in India.

It should be mentioned that both the official website and the download URL for VLC have been restricted by the Indian government. This indicates that users who have the program installed on their devices can continue to use the platform. This is because, according to the corporation, "VLC operates properly" without its servers.

"We don't track information, demand user accounts, or snoop on people" (telemetry). Therefore, once you have VLC, it will function without the need for our servers, the company explained in one of its most recent tweets.

The website's suspension in India is now unclear, but we anticipate shortly receiving some specific information from the government.