Popular VLC Media Player banned in India: Report

VLC Media Player has been banned in India, according to a report. This happened some 6 months ago. However, the app is still available on Google Play Store and App Store for anyone to download. Also, if you have the player installed, you can play it without a hitch even as the website, www.videolan.org, has been taken down. Notably, there is no official word about it from the government sources or the company. Its biggest USP was that it was free and performed basic tasks adequately well. It also supported various media formats. Also read: Do you use VLC Media Player? Beware!

A report by MediaNama said that VLC Media Player stands banned in India. It indicated that the ban was imposed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under the Information Technology Act 2020. Also read: 54 Chinese apps banned in India

According to some reports, the reason behind the ban on VLC Media Player was its links to China and the allegations indicated that Indian user data was being sent abroad. Not just that, it was also indicated that Chinese hackers were pushing malware and launching cyber attacks through it.

In the same period that the VLC Media Player was banned, the Indian government had also banned some of the top rated and popular websites in the country linked to China citing threat to national security from them. The number of entities banned was 54. However, VLC Media Player is not Chinese, but was likely targetted due to its links with that country. The player was actually started in France.