The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) announced on Thursday that it has blocked 18 Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms for promoting obscene and pornographic content. This decision was taken despite multiple warnings issued to these platforms against promoting obscenity, vulgarity and abuse under the guise of “creative expression”. The action was taken under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The blocked 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. Along with these platforms, 19 associated websites, 10 apps (7 on Google Play Store, 3 on Apple App Store) and 57 social media accounts have also been disabled.
The government stated that a significant portion of the content on these platforms portrayed women in a demeaning manner. It highlighted that the content depicted nudity and sexual acts in various inappropriate contexts, such as relationships between teachers and students incestuous family relationships, among others.
The content included sexual innuendos and in some instances, prolonged segments of pornographic and sexually explicit scenes devoid of any thematic or societal relevance. This was cited as the primary reason for the blocking of these platforms.
The government further revealed that one of the blocked OTT apps had more than 1 crore downloads, while two others had over 50 lakh downloads. The social media accounts of these OTT platforms had a cumulative followership of over 32 lakh users. These platforms extensively utilised social media to disseminate trailers, specific scenes and external links aimed at attracting audiences to their websites and apps.
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