Back in August, Indian authorities banned the official VLC media player website “www.videolan.org” across the country without an explanation for the ban. Now, VideoLAN, the publisher of the VLC media player, has issued a legal notice to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeiTY) in India.
After the ban, MeiTY received a Right to Information (RTI) request from VideoLAN with assistance from the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF). MeiTY answered by stating that they do not have any information regarding the ban. According to IFF, VideoLAN was not provided a warning or an opportunity to be heard. After that, VideoLAN has now sent these two government organizations a legal notice.
Although the government hasn’t provided any information or justification for why the VLC website was blocked in the nation, it has been reported that the government forbade downloading VLC from the program’s official website because some cybersecurity experts asserted that a hacker group called Cicada, based in China, used VLC to distribute malware. According to reports, the Chinese government supported the strike. Over the years, the hacker group has accumulated notoriety for attacking NGOs.
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