Now Reading: Centre spells out OTT rules as panel mulls stricter oversight
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Centre spells out OTT rules as panel mulls stricter oversight
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has told Parliament that OTT platforms must follow the Code of Ethics and three-tier complaint system under the IT Rules 2021. Union minister L Murugan said…
The Story in Brief
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has told Parliament that OTT platforms must follow the Code of Ethics and three-tier complaint system under the IT Rules 2021. Union minister L Murugan said in a Rajya Sabha reply that content must be classified based on themes, violence, nudity, sex, language, drugs, and horror. Complaints are forwarded to platforms for resolution.
Separately, a parliamentary committee has recommended a comprehensive statutory framework for OTT content, including an independent post-release review panel with experts from child development, law, and social sciences. The panel noted that minors remain exposed to harmful content due to weak age verification and lack of pre-release checks. It suggested suitable penalties for non-compliance.
The Indian Opinion
The familiar tug-of-war over OTT regulation pits self-regulation against state oversight, with 'cultural ethos' invoked to justify new controls. Yet the core problem remains unaddressed: age verification technology is still flimsy, and no system can pre-vet every episode on hundreds of platforms. The government should focus on making the existing grievance mechanism faster and transparent, not on creating new panels whose composition may tilt the balance toward censorship. The real test: will any post-release panel name and rectify a genuine violation, or merely become another clearance bottleneck?
Sources (2): english.mathrubhumi.com, timesofindia.indiatimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources.
