YouTube geo-blocks 4 Bangladeshi TV channels in India, after Indian government…
In a major development from YouTube, the American video-sharing platform has restricted access to as many as four Bangladeshi television channels in India. YouTube took the decision after receiving a takedown request from the Indian government. The government cited national security and public order concerns, as reported by Dismislab, a local digital watchdog.
The names of the blocked channels are: Jamuna TV, Ekattor TV, BanglaVision, and Mohona TV. These channels cannot be accessed in India now.
If a viewer from India tries to access these channel on YouTube, a message will be displayed stating – “This content is currently unavailable in this country because of an order from the government related to national security or public order.”
Independent verification by Dismislab, using VPN tests, confirmed a geo-block affecting access to certain Bangladeshi media channels from within India. This was demonstrated by the inaccessibility of four channels when accessed using an Indian IP address, following manual checks of 38 Bangladeshi channels. The government removed the content, citing national security and public order concerns.
Earlier, Jamuna TV confirmed that it has received an official notice from YouTube saying its content with its future uploads will remain blacked in India because of the directive of the Indian government. YouTube removed the content, citing national security and public order concerns.
It is worth noting that, the development comes amid the escalating tensions between the two countries following ‘Operation Sindoor’, a retaliation operation by New Delhi for a terror attack on April 22 that claimed 26 lives in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology uses Section 69A of the Information Technology Act to order online platforms to remove content considered detrimental to national security.
Increased digital censorship is highlighted by the recent blocking of Bangladeshi media outlets. This action follows a pattern of content removal requests. For instance, India requested the removal of over 3,868 items from Google in 2023 alone, and more than 115,000 items over the past ten years.
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