{"id":14092,"date":"2021-02-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/25-02-2021\/3-tier-checks-for-otts\/"},"modified":"2021-02-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T00:00:00","slug":"3-tier-checks-for-otts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/25-02-2021\/3-tier-checks-for-otts","title":{"rendered":"3-Tier Checks for OTTs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Context- <\/strong>Recently, the government has prepared <strong>draft rules to regulate all social media, streaming or OTT (over the top) platforms and news-related websites<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rationale behind the step<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Countries, including India, have felt the<strong> need to regulate social media companies, <\/strong>which are <strong>not responsible for the content,<\/strong> unlike <strong>traditional media firms.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>There have also been demands to regulate content on OTT and social media platforms, with some shows on these running into trouble for offending religious sentiments.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Absence of <strong>censorship <\/strong>has been <strong>grossly misused<\/strong> in the<strong> name of creative\u00a0 expression on digital platforms.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The OTT platforms are <strong>profit-driven and provide acces<\/strong>s to content by charging a subscription fee.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>About<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In the document, titled Information Technology <strong>(Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021,<\/strong> the government cites powers provided to it <strong>under section 87 of the Information Technology Act, 2000<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>This <strong>section allows the government <\/strong>to<strong> make rules to carry out the provision<\/strong>s of the law by <strong>notification in the Official Gazette and in the Electronic Gazette.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The draft contains a three-tier regulatory mechanism for <strong>regulation of all online media<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The<strong> first tier of the regulatory mechanism<\/strong> is <strong>grievance redressal <\/strong>by the <strong>company itself<\/strong>, and the<strong> second level involves a Press Council of India-like regulatory body <\/strong>that will be <strong>headed by a retired judge of a high court or the Supreme Court<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>third-tier will comprise <\/strong>an<strong> inter-ministerial committee a<\/strong>nd will be headed by a <strong>joint secretary-level <\/strong>officer from the <strong>Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. <\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>In effect, in addition to the<strong> IT ministry,<\/strong> this committee would also recommend blocks or takedowns<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Key Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cfstatic.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/file_library\/mix_content\/62202784127670420_image.png\" style=\"height:268px; margin-left:150px; margin-right:150px; width:321px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Social media companies may need to <strong>appoint officers who will be responsible<\/strong> for <strong>complying with content moderation orders.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The rules also say that<strong> competent authorities, through an order, <\/strong>may demand <strong>pertinent information<\/strong> for the purposes of <strong>prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of crimes.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>However, It <strong>excludes the intermediary from having to disclose<\/strong> the content of the <strong>personal messages<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The<strong> rules mandate the creation<\/strong> of a<strong> grievance redressal<\/strong> portal as the <strong>central repository<\/strong> for <strong>receiving and processing all grievances.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>They ask <strong>intermediaries to act on certain kinds of violations<\/strong> within 24 hours, and on all concerns of a complainant within 15 days.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>About OTT platforms<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OTT, or over-the-top platforms, are <strong>audio and video hosting and streaming<\/strong> services that <strong>started out as content hosting platforms<\/strong>, but<strong> soon branched out into the production<\/strong> and <strong>release of short movies, feature films, documentaries and web-series themselves.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>These <strong>platforms offer a range of content <\/strong>and <strong>use artificial intelligence<\/strong> to suggest to users the<strong> content they are likely to view based on their past viewership<\/strong> on the platform.<\/li>\n<li>Most <strong>OTT platforms generally offer some content<\/strong> for f<strong>ree and charge a monthly<\/strong> <strong>subscription fee for premium content<\/strong> which is<strong> generally unavailable elsewhere.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The premium content is usually produced and marketed by the OTT platform themselves, in association with established production houses that <strong>historically have made feature films.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0OTT platforms in India<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are currently <strong>40 OTT platforms <\/strong>operating in India.<\/li>\n<li>The government as the<strong> first step towards regulation<\/strong>, amended the \u201c<strong>allocation of Business Rules<\/strong>\u201d in November last year bringing <strong>all online platforms under the mandate of the I&#038;B Ministry and all platforms were told to register with the Ministry.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The central government\u2019s move to bring the OTT platforms under the I&#038;B Ministry could also mean that these platforms would have to apply for<strong> certification and approval of the content they wish to stream.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The laws regulating OTT platforms<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>In India, there are no laws or rules regulating OTT platforms as it is a relatively new <strong>medium of entertainment<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The regulation of such platforms has been widely debated and discussed therefore the <strong>Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI)<\/strong>, a representative body of the OTT <strong>platforms has developed a self-regulatory model.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>On examination, it was felt that the<strong> mechanism proposed by IAMAI did not give adequate cognizance to content prohibited under law<\/strong> and there were issues of conflict of interest, which were communicated to IAMAI in September 2020.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>Online Curated Content Providers or OCCPs<\/strong> had also proposed a<strong> Digital Curated Content Complaints Council <\/strong>along with the<strong> self-regulatory mechanism <\/strong>as a part of its<strong> proposed two-tier structure.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The proposal, however, was shot down by the<strong> Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which will now oversee these platforms.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/india-news\/draft-govt-policy-seeks-3-tier-checks-for-otts-101614112169445.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source :HT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context- Recently, the government has prepared draft rules to regulate all social media, streaming or OTT (over the top) platforms and news-related websites. Rationale behind the step Countries, including India, have felt the need to regulate social media companies, which are not responsible for the content, unlike traditional media firms. There have also been demands [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/3702632current-affairs (1).jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}