One of India's biggest OTT platforms, Hotstar is receiving backlash for blocking an episode of 'Last Week Tonight with John Oliver', in which the host had criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While the Disney owned platform has kept mum about the same, users have been leaving 1-star ratings and negative reviews on its app available on Google Play and App store.
HBO's Emmy winning series 'Last Week Tonight with John Oliver' airs every Tuesday, at 6 am, however, Hotstar chose to block the latest episode of the series. According to reports, the host of the show, John Oliver had criticised Narendra Modi and also addressed the 'escalating persecution of religious minorities'. In video snippets of the episode, Oliver can be heard saying, "Because India, home of this enduring symbol of love (Taj Mahal), frankly deserves a lot more than this temporary symbol of hate (Modi). "
The episode that's critical of PM Modi, is still available on YouTube. However, users have been criticising the streaming platform's move of blocking the content. This even led to them giving negative reviews and 1-star ratings to the app on Android and iPhone app stores.
Tweeple also took to the micro-blogging app to criticise the streaming platform's parent company - Disney.
A user wrote,"Disney India banned John Oliver's episode criticising Modi because enabling Nazis is time-honoured tradition at Disney since the world war 2."
Addressing the same, journalist Shashank Joshi wrote, "A good example of how illiberal regimes can generate pressure for private-sector self-censorship."
Disney and Hotstar haven't responded to requests for a response, while an Information and Broadcasting Ministry official said the government has "nothing to do with the matter".
Meanwhile, the 30-minute episode has since been watched by more than five million people, on the show's official YouTube channel.
