New Delhi: According to the news received today, the Central Government has issued public benefit guidelines for social media and over-the-top (OTT) platforms. Union Ministers Prakash Javdekar and Ravishankar Prasad announced the necessary regulations at the press conference.
Now the scope of these new guidelines will also come on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar. It is worth mentioning that before this, Minister Javadekar had said that all the necessary guidelines have been prepared in this regard and they will be implemented soon. What big announcements are these two Union Ministers making today?
This will be the new social media policy:
- It now has two types of categories: Social Media Intermediate and Significant Social Media Intermediate.
- Now everyone will also have to make a grievance redressal mechanism and a complaint will be lodged in the next 24 hours and these cases will have to be resolved in 14 days.
- Now if there is any complaint of any mess from the users, especially women, then this content will have to be removed in 24 hours.
- With this, Significand Social Media will now have to be Chief Compliance Officer who will be a resident of India.
- At the same time, a nodal contact person will have to be together, who will be in contact with the legal agencies round the clock.
- With this, a monthly compliance report will have to be issued now.
- Along with this, the social media company will have to tell in detail about who has done the first thing on social media.
- Every social media company must have a permanent mailing address in India.
- Now every social media platform will also have to maintain its user verification system.
- The special thing is that all the above rules for social media will be implemented from today itself. At the same time, Significand Social Media Intermediate will take three months time.
- Here, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar stated clearly that, ‘The government understood that there should be a level-playing field for media platforms, so now some rules must be followed. There was a lot of demand from people about this. “
These will be new guidelines for OTT platforms:
- OTT and digital news media have to provide complete and detailed information about themselves. Yes, their registration is not mandatory.
- Now both these OTT and digital news media will have to implement Greven’s redressal system. If a mistake is found, they will have to regulate themselves.
- In addition, OTT platforms will also have to form a self-regulation body, which will be directed by a retired Supreme Court judge or a celebrity.
- Now OTT like the censor board will also have certification according to age. The ethics code will remain the same as TV, cinema.
- Today it was also clearly stated that digital media portals have absolutely no right to spread rumors and lies.
- Here, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has appealed to the central government to negotiate once with the stakeholders before regulating the OTT platforms. Significantly, there are at least 40 OTT platforms in the world including Netflix, Prime, and Hotstar (Disney Plus).
It should be noted that the Central Government had told the Supreme Court only last week what steps it is considering to regulate OTT platforms. At the same time in October last year, the Supreme Court summoned the Center for its response to the PIL for setting up a proper institute for monitoring and managing content on various OTT / streaming and digital media platforms. At the same time, in the Parliament of the country, many MPs had strongly demanded to bring the web series to a scope of censorship in the ‘Lok Sabha’ on 12 February.
