VLC Had No Communication From Indian Govt Regarding App Ban

Amid a ban on open source software VLC Media Player in India, the multimedia player and its parent company VideoLan have reportedly said they have not received any information from the Indian government on the reasons for the ban.

VLC Media Player and VideoLan tried to reach out to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to understand the reason for the ban but to no avail, the Economic Times reported.

Following a 10%-15% drop in its website impressions, the ban on the app and website in India was first noticed on February 13 this year, Felix Paul Kühne, a board member of VideoLan, said. However, it never received any communication from Indian authorities on the ban, Kühne claimed.

“Also, please note that VLC is safe and the Chinese hacking part reported elsewhere is a misunderstanding of a security report. VLC is not controlled by the Chinese nor it is unsafe,” Jean-Baptiste Kempf, president and lead developer at VideoLan, was quoted as saying. 

Last week, VLC said in a tweet that it has been banned in India since February 13. There have been different views on when it was banned.

VideoLAN’s twitter handle tweeted, “If you are in India, please help us.”

According to several media reports, the ban on VLC was imposed around the time when 54 Chinese apps, including Garena Free Fire, were banned by authorities in February this year.

On the other hand, some reports also suggested that VLC was banned after hackers (Cicada) associated with the Chinese government were unearthed using the software to launch a custom malware loader, around two months ago.

Meanwhile, the MeitY denied having any information about the ban on VLC website in response to an RTI query filed by Delhi-based Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) India in June.

Last month, Krafton’s popular battle royale game Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) was pulled down from Google Play Store and Apple Store on government orders over its links to China. 

The government has banned many apps over the last couple of years, particularly those with Chinese links, after the border clashes between soldiers of India and China in eastern Ladakh in 2020.

The government has so far blocked 348 apps for allegedly collecting user information and transmitting it in an unauthorised manner to servers outside the country, Minister of State (MoS) for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Rajeev Chandrasekhar informed the Parliament earlier this month. 

In February this year, 54 apps were banned in India, including another popular battle royale game Garena Free Fire.

VideoLan, VLC Media Players’ parent company, first noticed the ban on its app and website in India on February 13 after a 10%-15% drop in its website impressions.