The Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill’s provisions that aimed to group online content creators with over-the-top (OTT) or digital news broadcasters and subject them to the ministry’s Content and Advertisement Code caused some concern, so the government announced today that it will hold additional consultations and publish a new draft of the bill.
In November of last year, the previous draft bill and its accompanying notes were made available to the public.
Civil society associations and digital media organizations were allegedly not consulted during the transition, according to media organizations like DigiPub and the Editors Guild of India.
The draft bill also drew criticism from the opposition Congress with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra accusing the government of trying to “gag” digital media, social media, OTT platforms and those who write and speak in a private capacity by bringing in the bill.
The government, on the other hand, has maintained that the bill is still at the drafting stage and consultation with stakeholders is currently underway.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting today said that additional time has been given to stakeholders till October 15.
“The Ministry is holding a series of consultations with the stakeholders on the draft bill. A fresh draft will be published after detailed consultations,” the ministry said in a post on X.
The bill seeks to directly regulate streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+Hotstar as over-the-top, or OTT, broadcasting services.
The provisions in the draft bill would have made it mandatory for individual online content creators to appoint a grievance redressal officer and a content evaluation committee once they crossed a certain number of subscribers.
If cleared, it would replace Cable Television Network Act as well as a slew of policies and guidelines drawn up later to plug holes.
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