VLC Media Player website ban lifted in India

New Delhi, Nov 14: The central government has removed the ban on VLC, the hugely popular open-source media player, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) said on Monday.

"VICTORY @GoI_MeitY has decided to remove its ban on the website of VLC media player. IFF provided legal support to @videolan throughout this process," the IFF made the announcement on Twitter.

It further said those who still cannot access the website, should write to it with their ISP details.

If you are unable to access http://videolan.org, write to us with the details of your ISP.

The ban came into effect earlier this year; however, there was no official statement announcing the ban.

The Electronics and IT (MeitY) took action because 'the application had been communicating with servers of a previously banned app and transferring user information to a hostile country," according to Indian Express.

During this period, only the website was blocked, and mobile apps continued to work fine.

In June, IFF said it had filed an RTI, seeking information from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on the grounds on which the action was taken.

"On June 07, 2022, we filed a Right to Information application with @DoT_India seeking information on the blocking of the website of VideoLAN[dot]org in India. DoT transferred it to @GoI_MeitY, which then responded on July 14 that "No information is available [with MeitY]"," tweeted IFF.

"In our application, we sought information on the grounds on which videolan.org has been blocked for access in India and whether any hearing opportunity was provided to the website owners before the website was blocked for access in India," it added.

"However, in their single-line response,@GoI_MeitY has simply stated that they do not have any such information. We have filed the first appeal on this response, arguing that it is illegal and demonstrates non-application of mind," it further said.