Explained: Why VLC Media Player got banned in India

VLC Media Player developer VideoLAN said the media player was banned in India on February 13. The VLC website and download link have been down ever since. But, users who have the software installed are still available to access it. The company says it has no idea why the government banned the platform. VideoLAN said, "VLC works perfectly without our servers: we don't collect info, we don't require user accounts, we don't spy on people (telemetry). So once you have VLC, you don't need our servers for it to work." Here we have shared the 5 things that we know so far about the VLC ban in India.

VLC Media Player banned in India

♦ VLC Media Play blocked website displays the message "the website has been blocked as per order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information technology under IT Act, 2000" message. The act deals with the primary law in India dealing with cybercrime and electronic commerce.

♦ At present, the VLC Media Play website and download link are blocked. In other words, users who already have VLC player installed should still be able to use it to view their media files. New users will not be able to get VLC.

♦ VideoLAN has officially confirmed the ban that hardly anyone noticed. The official reason behind the ban has yet to be disclosed, but some reports suggest that VLC Media Player has been banned because the China-backed Cicada hacking group used the platform for cyber attacks.

♦ VideoLAN presidentshared: "we got banned since a few months, and we don't know why. We've asked the Indian government, and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly."

♦ The Indian government has not yet confirmed why VLC Media Player has been banned in the country. The company is looking to Twitter for help as it has no idea the motive behind the sudden ban.