Prakash Javadekar, the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, and a member of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) stated that a lot of suggestions and complaints on the regulation of OTTs have been received by people. The minister also added in his brief suggestion, “Guidelines and directions are almost ready, and will be soon implemented.”
On Tuesday, the union minister of information and broadcasting Prakash Javadekar informed the Rajya Sabha, addressed this type of issue such as sensitive content, and announced that the central government will soon issue a guiding principle for regulation of OTT (over the top) platforms.
There are around 40 over the top platforms existing across the globe including, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Hotstar+Disney, and hundreds of news content websites. In India, they have their own set of local opponents including Sony Liv, Alt Balaji, Voot, and others. The self-regulated content that they make is accessible on their platform.
Keeping in mind, the kind of controversy that OTT platforms serve, and with showcasing such indecent shows, they have stood themselves in a trouble. Earlier, raising the concern over a Zero Hour mention, raised by Mahesh Poddar, a member of BJP said that content hosted by OTT platforms affects Indian values and internet penetration. During the lockdown, the shutdown of movie theatres had pushed video streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hotstar to the fore, which will badly affect the young generation. Poddar added that these types of platforms are demeaning for the women.
The content and language on these platforms are biased and abusive. Objectional content on these types of platforms contains offensive language, sexual Internet regulations.
