New Delhi: The Supreme Court, on Friday sought a response from the Centre on a plea seeking to regulate the content featured on online media streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hotstar.
A bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, issued notice to the ministries of I&B and law on a petition calling for framing of guidelines for these over-the-top (OTT) platforms as they show “uncertified, sexually explicit and vulgar” content.
The plea, filed by a non-governmental organisation, Justice for Rights, has claimed that due to lack of regulation for the web-exclusive content, the platforms were telecasting shows full of ‘vulgarity, religiously forbidden and morally unethical’. The PIL has also alleged that the content of several shows on the online platform violated provisions of the Indian Penal code (IPC) and the Information Technology Act.
In January this year, leading Online Curated Content Providers (OCCPs) including Netflix, Hotstar, Voot, Arre, Sonyliv and ALTBalaji came together with a self-regulatory code to regulate video streaming content. OCCPs voluntarily signed a self-regulatory Code of Best Practices under the aegis of Inter and Mobile Association of India.
