New Information Technology rules threaten the creative freedom enjoyed by OTT platforms

Soft-touch regulatory architecture’ to help the government monitor and regulate OTT content more closelySoon after the recent legal trouble that Amazon Prime Video series Tandav found itself in — including an FIR against the company’s India head Aparna Purohit — industry observers expected an apologetic official statement. But they perhaps didn’t expect it to be quite what it finally was. It read: “Amazon Prime Video again deeply regrets that viewers considered certain scenes to be objectionable in the recently launched fictional series Tandav. This was never our intention, and the scenes that were objected to were removed or edited when they were brought to our attention. We respect our viewers’ diverse beliefs and apologise unconditionally to anyone who felt hurt by these scenes.”Also Read | Get ‘First Day First Show’, our weekly newsletter from the world of cinema, in your inbox. You can subscribe for free hereHot on the heels of Amazon Prime’s statement, the government made its big play: the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. This is a new set of regulations for social media and OTT (over-the-top) platforms, bringing Netflix, Hotstar and Co. under the ambit of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), citing powers given to the government by Section 87 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. The three major prongs of the regulation are age-based content classification (the five categories being Universal, 7+, 13+, 16+ and Adult), parental locks for content marked 13+, and finally a three-tier grievance addressing mechanism.