{"id":118611,"date":"2021-07-14T20:09:20","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T14:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=118611"},"modified":"2021-07-14T20:09:20","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T14:39:20","slug":"framing-the-legislation-forgetting-the-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/framing-the-legislation-forgetting-the-transparency\/","title":{"rendered":"Framing the legislation, forgetting the transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=GV18P01KQ.1&amp;imageview=0\">The Hindu<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis: <\/strong>Discussions and transparency indicate trust in the people by an elected government. However, there is little evidence of that in the framing of the IT guidelines.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Bill aimed to <\/strong>regulate the business of lakhs of cable operators, multi-system operators, and broadcasters.<\/li>\n<li>The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, much like the present Government, was clueless about the number of cable operators.\n<ul>\n<li>Many had sizeable stakes in the real estate business in the country and carried the channels for a price which was at the centre of animosity between the broadcasters and the cable operators.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>draft of the proposed Bill<\/strong> was discussed with all stakeholders and spilled over months.<\/li>\n<li>Eventually passed by Parliament in 2002, the Cable Television Networks Regulation (Amendment) Act was <strong>not a perfect Act and undergone many more amendments<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>But the changes were the <strong>outcome of intense discussions<\/strong> with all stakeholders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is a marked departure from the manner in which the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 is being pushed through.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Need to regulate digital media:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Lack of data:<\/strong> Former Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Minister commented that the Ministry officials <strong>had no fix on the number of OTT platforms<\/strong> <strong>and users<\/strong> in the country.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Increasing user base<\/strong>: There are over 200 million OTT subscribers. There are around 550 million television and smartphone consumers in the country. The figures are expected to double by 2025.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No regulation:<\/strong> it&#8217;s business along with the entertainment industry had reached \u20b91.82 trillion in 2019 and has been projected to cross \u20b92.4 trillion by 2022.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Issues with Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Firstly, the Government <strong>never put up the amendments for public discussion<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>However, while amending the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867, the Ministry had put out the draft on its website inviting discussions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Secondly, lesser time to comply.\n<ul>\n<li>The IT rules came into effect on February 25 with the Government giving digital publishers three months to comply.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Thirdly, the Digital News Publishers Association, the Press Trust of India, and now the News Broadcasters Association have moved courts petitioning <strong>that the code restricts free speech<\/strong> and <strong>exceeds the mandate of the IT Act.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Fourth, India has not followed best practices and the <strong>new rules are characterised by excessive government overreach.<\/strong> Most countries have set up an enabling architecture for OTT platforms to grow.\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive<\/strong>, encourages self-regulation and co-regulation among players, with a specific focus on child safety and violence, and hate speech.<\/li>\n<li>In the <strong>United Kingdom,<\/strong> programming on video-on-demand services is regulated by Ofcom, which not only provides editorial rules but also has specific provisions for protecting those under 18 and the prohibition of content inciting hatred.<\/li>\n<li>In the <strong>United States,<\/strong> OTT content remains unregulated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Lastly, there is a question about the <strong>government\u2019s mandate to control and regulate<\/strong> digital news.\n<ul>\n<li>There is a question over the formulation of a self-regulating code for digital media by the government, as it makes no sense.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hence, freedom of expression and public debate should be given adequate importance as they are the heart of the content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The Hindu Synopsis: Discussions and transparency indicate trust in the people by an elected government. However, there is little evidence of that in the framing of the IT guidelines. Background: The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Bill aimed to regulate the business of lakhs of cable operators, multi-system operators, and broadcasters. The Atal Bihari&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/framing-the-legislation-forgetting-the-transparency\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Framing the legislation, forgetting the transparency<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704930604},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}