Singh added that the government is not required to provide a reason for banning because of a legal provision in a 2009 law, called Rule 16, which allows the government to claim an “obligation of confidentiality.”
“We are optimistic that we may receive some more information from the government, though our past experience is that the Indian IT Ministry has not offered helpful disclosures at the first appellate stage,” he said. Tanmay Singh, senior litigation counsel at Internet Freedom Foundation, told The Record the group filed an appeal this month and is expecting a response within 30 days, as required by law.
Neither ministry responded to The Record’s requests for comment. That request was transferred to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which told the group in July that “no information is available.” The rights organization said it requested the reason behind the blocking of videolanorg in India and whether the website owners were given a hearing before access was blocked. The group is an Indian digital liberties organization focused on free speech, digital surveillance, privacy and net neutrality. In June, the Internet Freedom Foundation filed an application for more information with the Department of Telecommunications. Since February, the download site for VLC has been banned by internet service providers in India but few reasons were ever provided publicly - although company executives and cyber experts suspect it is linked to alleged vulnerabilities exploited by Chinese hackers.įor those who downloaded it before the ban, the player itself still works in the country.Īnyone know why has banned VLC Downloads in India? /lQubbyK0Yi- Gagandeep Sapra August 12, 2022 It is blocked by your government.- VideoLAN July 31, 2022 Human rights lawyers, journalists and VLC executives remain in the dark as to why the platform’s website has been barred in the country, despite repeated requests for information from the Indian government since the ban went into effect at the beginning of the year. Rights groups, company leaders decry silence over VLC player ban in IndiaĬybersecurity experts, researchers and rights groups have raised alarms around the government of India’s efforts to block VLC Media Player.