The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has blocked 18 OTT platforms, 19 websites, 10 applications and 57 social media handles of OTT platforms for “obscene and vulgar” content.

Among the platforms that have been blocked are Dreams Films, Voovi, Yessma, Uncut Adda, Tri Flicks, X Prime and Neon X VIP.

The government said that it acted against them after “multiple warnings” from Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur.

The information and broadcasting ministry said that on a preliminary reading, the content on these platforms was found to violate Sections 67 (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) and 67A (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit acts) of the Information Technology Act.

The government also alleged that the content violated Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code (sale of obscene material) and Section 4 of the Indecent Representation of Women Prohibition Act, 1986, which prohibits the publication or distribution of material that contains “indecent representation of women”.

All these provisions, however, are punitive in nature and do not permit blocking any content or any platforms.

The Centre said that a significant portion of the content hosted on these platforms was found to be “obscene, vulgar, and portrayed women in a demeaning manner”. It added: “It depicted nudity and sexual acts in various inappropriate contexts, such as relationships between teachers and students, incestuous family relationships, etc.”

The government said that one of the OTT applications had been downloaded more than 1 crore times while two others had been downloaded more than 2 lakh times on the Google Play Store.