Censorship Of Netflix, Prime Can Start With 3-Tier ‘Regulation’; Govt Can Remove Any Movie, Series?

In a big setback to the audience of OTTs such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar and others, a new 3-tier content regulation structure has been proposed. And in layman’s terms, this is called censorship.

Broadly speaking, under this new proposed regulatory model, Govt has the power to remove any content which doesn’t adhere to their moral standards.

And this can change everything about OTT movies and series.

Find out how will it work?

Start Of Censorship For OTTs In India: 3-Tier Model

Govt of India has proposed a draft regulatory model called Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which has been provisioned under Section 87 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

This draft policy suggests a 3-tier censorship model, for regulating OTTs such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hotstar and others, along with social media platform as well.

The first tier of this model is self-regulation, which the OTTs and social media need to implement.

The second tier is a Press Council of India like regulatory body, which will be headed by a retirned Judge. This panel will censor the content, but cannot take any action.

The 3rd tier will have a regulatory officer, who can take down any movie, series being streamed via OTTs, and also content being shared on social media.

Hence if any content being cleared under self-regulation doesn’t tow with the moral standards of the 2nd tier regulatory body, then the 3rd tier has the power to remove that content.

Will This Stifle Creativity?

As per some experts, in the absence of clear cut regulatory rules and regulations, the concerned regulatory officer will have a free-hand to censor any content, which doesn’t fall into their framework of ‘approved content’.

Reasons such as hurting religious sentiments, or bad moral conduct can be used to remove such content.

For more indepth analysis of this proposed draft, please refer here.

We are awaiting for more details.. We will keep you updated, as more details come in.