NEW DELHI, INDIA— The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has blocked 43 Over-The-Top (OTT) streaming platforms for not following Indian laws and the strict Code of Ethics set out in the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. This is a big step toward controlling what people can see online. Union Minister for Railways, I&B, and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw made this announcement after talking to many ministries and giving the platforms a number of cautions.
Minister Vaishnaw said again on Wednesday, July 30, 2025, in response to a question in the Lok Sabha, that Part III of the IT Rules requires OTT platforms to follow a certain code of conduct. This means that you can’t send stuff that is illegal, you have to sort content by age based on rules about nudity, sex, and violence, and you have to put in strong security measures and access restrictions to keep kids from seeing content that is not appropriate for their age.
A History of Not Following the Rules and Government Action
The government has been restricting streaming services for the past year because they are said to carry indecent and pornographic content. This is the latest step against 43 of them. In March 2024, the MIB restricted 18 OTT platforms, and on July 23 of this year, they blocked another 25.
Hindustan Times looked at an internal MIB document that showed a worrying trend: five platforms that were blacklisted in March 2024 apparently came back on different domains and kept posting sexual content. The government said that this “repeat-offender pattern” shows how hard it is to stop unlawful content from spreading online. The ministry didn’t say for sure if the five platform names that showed up in both the March 2024 and July 2025 directives were the same companies operating behind different domain names. Some of the well-known names that have been restricted in these recent crackdowns are Ullu, ALTT, Big Shots, Desiflix, and Mojflix, to mention a few.
Minister Vaishnaw talked about how the government always works to make sure people follow the rules. In September 2024 and again in February 2025, OTT platforms were told what they needed to do. In May, the government also stepped in directly to take down Ullu’s web series House Arrest, saying it broke the rules.
The Law That Made the Action Possible
Content on the prohibited OTT sites was deemed to break parts of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.
The blocking order from July 2025 was made under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act. If intermediaries (like OTT platforms) don’t act after being legally told to do so, this important element gives the government the ability to tell them to remove or block access to illegal content. If intermediaries don’t follow these government orders, this law takes away their “safe harbor” safeguards.
The government’s measures show that it is very serious about enforcing digital media ethics and making sure that online content platforms follow India’s laws and morals. Minister Vaishnaw said earlier that the government blocked over 1,400 URLs during “Operation Sindoor” to stop fake news. This crackdown is part of a bigger effort. The goal of the constant vigilance is to make the digital content ecosystem safer and more compliant for Indian viewers.