Intermediaries like WhatsApp need to recognize the initial originator of messages deemed mischievous by the government and all intermediaries will want to pull down unlawful content inside 36 hours of it becoming flagged, following draft suggestions announced on Thursday. Streaming services like Netflix and Google’s YouTube need to self-regulate and classify content in categories according to age.
Also, digital news media organisations can be directed by the government to take away any content below Section 69A of the IT Act which it finds objectionable from the point of view of law and order, country’s sovereignty, integrity, or friendly relations with neighbouring nations.
These new regulations are becoming framed below the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The draft guidelines say that OTT players need to take into consideration, “India’s multi-racial and multi-religious context” when featuring content relating to any racial or religious group.
Stand-alone digital media organisations want to adhere to the code of journalistic ethics laid down by Press Council of India,presently observed by print media and the Cable and Television Regulation Act, which applies to tv news.
Messaging platforms would now want to appoint grievance redressal officers in the nation and resolve customer grievances inside a certain time period they need to also designate nodal officers to co-ordinate with the government on law and order matters.
The government has described the suggestions to regulate OTT platforms and stand-alone digital news media outlets, becoming framed for the initial time, as light-touch regulations aimed at building a level-play field in between these entities and print and Television media as properly as films and entertainment shows on tv channels.
Internet Freedom Foundation(IFF) observed on its wesite that the proposed regulationof OTT and media to be unconstitutional with the oversight mechanism becoming designed without having any legislative backing. “The purview of the IT Act 2000 does not extend to news media,and so the guidelines,do not have the legislative backing to regulate news media,” the organisation wrote.
Legal specialists think tracing originators could be susceptible to falsification and also to breaking encryption. In the previous, WhatsApp has expressed its inability to provide traceability of messages saying it amounts to breaking encryption.
The government, having said that, clarified that by looking for to know the originator of the message it is not asking the intermediatory to break any encryption. Recently Twitter complied only partly with the government’s directives to block more than 1,one hundred tweets/accounts.
OTTs like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video now want to self-classify all content into 5 age-based categories as is performed by films and Television presently. The categories are — U (Universal), U/A 7+ (years), U/A 13+, U/A 16+, and A (Adult). Stand –alone digital entities need to disclose info associated to their ownership specifics and so on in a prescribed format to the government, significantly like the print and tv news media.
Consumers who think OTT suggestions have been violated or that digital news media outlets have breached the guidelines may possibly seek redressal via a 3-level redressal mechanism. The initial level comprises the publishers/owners even though the second level would comprise the self-regulating bodies of publishers/owners headed by a retired judge of Supreme Court, or High Courts, or a domain professional. The third is an oversight mechanism comprising an inter-departmental government panel.