Obscene Content: Centre Blocks 18 OTT Platforms (Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash)

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has made a crucial move today by blocking 18 OTT platforms. Centre made this decision against the streaming platforms for publishing “obscene, vulgar, and, in some instances, pornographic content.” Along with this, 19 websites, 10 apps, and 57 social media accounts to these platforms have also been disabled for public access in the country.

The central government mentioned in its statement that the decision to block the OTT platforms was taken under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000, in consultation with various ministries, departments, and domain experts specialising in media, women”s rights, and child rights. Centre also noted that a “significant portion of the content” hosted on the platforms was identified as “obscene, vulgar, and portrayed women in a demeaning manner.”

The list of OTT services blocked by the government includes Dreams Films, X Prime, Neon X VIP, Yessma, Uncut Adda, Tri Flicks, Hunters, Rabbit, and Mojflix. As per the official statement, the content on these platforms depicted nudity and sexual acts in several inappropriate contexts.

List of OTT platforms blocked by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting

“The content was determined to be prima facie in violation of Section 67 and 67A of the IT Act, Section 292 of the IPC, and Section 4 of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986,” said the Ministry of I&B in its statement. Out of the 10 banned apps, 7 are from the Google Play Store and 3 from the Apple App Store. It is to be noted that one of the OTT apps has more than 1 crore downloads on the Google Play Store, and two others have over 50 lakh downloads. For attracting audiences to their websites, these OTT platforms utilized social media to circulate trailers, specific scenes, and external links.