First time I am hearing it was blocked. I bought a new phone and laptop couple months ago and I have VLC installed on both (one is Android and the other is Windows). Anyway, if it's unblocked now, that's good news.
Just one of the sides. Sadly the president of India doesn't seem interested responding. Nevertheless I'm sure many government agencies of India use VLC.
Some official decided that blocking the official source for a popular video player was the smart response to a malware-infected fake variant being in circulation.
No major firings have made the news, so we can only assume this official continues to direct policy, unburdened by sentience.
There will never be any firings, government jobs in India are very different to those of the US. Best case, someone sues the government in supreme court, and they lay out some guidelines/bounds for the concerned department/ministry against doing such things in the future.
Even then, the government could pull such things off again easily in the name of national security. Just look at how we blocked Chinese apps in the wake of Galwan valley clashes of 2020.
Government jobs in the US are very hard to get fired from. You have to actually commit a crime, have a history of gross negligence, or just make a big enough mistake during a probationary period to get fired. Appointed positions are probably the easiest to get fired from as the executive can just dismiss you although a forced resignation is more likely to happen. These jobs also have a lot of long term security so they are hard to get and are sometimes only open for current government employees. The downside is that they pay less than a corporate job but that's fine for some people who just want indefinite tenures.
There is no indication that this was the reason for the block, is there?
The speculation I've seen on the other thread (linked below) seems to be mostly either "probably caught up in some pirate site takedowns" or "nobody knows, stop trying to guess, the government doesn't make sense and is run by monkeys" (the monkeys being their words, not mine).
Hahaha, its funny you expect somebody to be fired over this. People don't get fired for murders, unless of course there is a public and political outrage, till then nothing happens.
You do understand this is purely speculation, do you?
India has never, ever explained its blocking of videolan.org. Only spurious remarks were made by government officials, mostly from agencies that weren't involved in the blocking.
What really concerns me is that India blocked Videolan.org without explanation and still hasn't explained its rationale for doing so.
A country which prides itself on being a democracy should at least explain its actions, especially when these actions adversely affect millions of people.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 70.2 ms ] threadhttps://twitter.com/videolan/status/1592097148472274945
No major firings have made the news, so we can only assume this official continues to direct policy, unburdened by sentience.
Even then, the government could pull such things off again easily in the name of national security. Just look at how we blocked Chinese apps in the wake of Galwan valley clashes of 2020.
They block first and ask questions later.
This has been a problem for years.
The speculation I've seen on the other thread (linked below) seems to be mostly either "probably caught up in some pirate site takedowns" or "nobody knows, stop trying to guess, the government doesn't make sense and is run by monkeys" (the monkeys being their words, not mine).
India has never, ever explained its blocking of videolan.org. Only spurious remarks were made by government officials, mostly from agencies that weren't involved in the blocking.
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indian-government-withdr...
And the yestercentury-types in the US forgot that it was the 21st century with all the bickering about old news.
It's pretty obvious that this was a mistake on their side, but it tooooook a long time to go around bureaucracy.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/17/vlc-india/
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/04/vlc-developer-videolan-sen...
https://internetfreedom.in/videolan-issued-legal-notice-to-d... .
A country which prides itself on being a democracy should at least explain its actions, especially when these actions adversely affect millions of people.
Yes, elections happen in India. Some of them are even done in a fair manner.
But outside of elections, first world democracy is non-existent.
However, somewhere along the way politicians came to the conclusion that democracy is a merely nuisance and only pay lip service to it.
Democracy also means transparency and that would thrust their corruption into the light, which they can't allow.