Indian govt bans 18 OTT platforms, 19 websites over obscene and vulgar content
Representational photo
India's Information and Broadcasting Ministry on Thursday (Mar 14) banned 18 OTT platforms for publishing obscene, vulgar, and in some cases pornographic content. Not just OTT platforms, the ministry has also pulled down websites, apps and several social media accounts.
In total 18 OTT platforms, 19 websites, 10 apps (seven on Google Play Store, three on Apple App store) and 57 social media accounts have been disabled.
In a statement issued by the ministry, “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.”
The move came after the said platforms failed to act upon the warnings sent by the ministry in previous months.
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.
Several of these platforms had content that had sexual innuendos and in some segment had prolonged segments of pornographic and sexually explicit scenes devoid of any thematic or societal relevance.
Most of these banned platforms have huge followers and subscribers.
One of the banned OTT apps gained more than 10 million downloads, while two others had over five million downloads on the Google Play Store.
