57% Indians Want Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar Censorship Due To Offensive Content; But Women Don’t Want It!

We all know, through statistics and experience, of course that not everyone we bump into watches OTT platform contents on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Most Indians are mainly into online content with their regional languages, or platforms like Sony Live or counterparts of Zee. We have also had this belief that people who can bring themselves to watch Netflix, Prime or Voot must have a distinct sense of content, not easily hampered by something R-rated or lewd. Oh, how mistaken we were!

As per a recent survey conducted by YouGov, surprisingly 57% of Indians want government regulation for OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar and Voot. Moreover, 47% find it uncomfortable to watch some content around family.

59% Indians Want Censorship on Netflix

YouGov Omnibus collected this data from about 1005 respondents in India between October 22nd and 28th 2019, using its panel of more than 6 million people worldwide. Safe to say, it concluded that 59% of Indians felt that OTT platforms in the country were offering a lot of offensive content, unsuitable for public viewing.

While 27% of the surveyed people think censorship is not required for these platforms, 16% were unsure of it. When asked about the likely effects of content regulation for online streaming platforms, about 47% believed that better quality content will be watched by more people due to change.

However, 30% people also felt that due to censorship, the quality of content will suffer. They think piracy and illegal downloading will increase.

The Indian government is already considering the regulation of OTT platforms like Netflix, Hotstar, and Amazon Prime Video. The Supreme Court earlier this year directed the Centre to regulate the content featured on OTT media platform.

Men, More than Women Want Censorship

Nine in ten of the surveyed people, constituting 91% of them felt that content- either on TV, films or online must be regulated by the government. Men are more likely than women to say they want content to be regulated always.

45% men believe that content should always be regulated by the government, while 34% of women believe to be wanting it. Also, 56% men want censorship of content sometimes; here too women seem to want it only 46% of times.

Among all the age groups, GenX are most likely to say censorship is needed while GenZ are least likely to say so. Gen X are the ones born between 1965-1976, while GenZ are the ones born between 1995-2015.