The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting under the central government has banned 18 OTT platforms such as Uncut Adda, Dreams Films and Prime Play for hosting 'obscene and vulgar' and even pornographic content despite repeated warnings. Notably, 19 websites, 10 apps and 57 social media accounts associated with these OTT platforms have also been blocked for public access in India.
The OTT platforms have been banned for the prima facie violation of Sections 67 and 67A of the Information Technology Act, Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 4 of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.
The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, while explaining the reason for this ban on OTT platforms, noted, "A significant portion of the content hosted on these platforms was found to be obscene, vulgar and portrayed women in a demeaning manner. It depicted nudity and sexual acts in various inappropriate contexts, such as relationships between teachers and students, incestuous family relationships, etc.
"The content included sexual innuendos and, in some instances, prolonged segments of pornographic and sexually explicit scenes devoid of any thematic or societal relevance.." the I&B Ministry wrote.
Talking about the scale of these OTT apps, the union government said that one of these apps had amassed over 1 crore downloads while the other two had over 50 lakh downloads on the Google Play Store. Meanwhile, the social media handles of these OTT platforms had a cumulative followership of over 32 lakh users.
According to the government release, the I&B ministry has blocked access to 12 Facebook accounts, 17 Instagram accounts, 16 X (formerly Twitter) accounts and 12 YouTube accounts.
