The Indian government has said that since the IT Rules and content-related Code of Ethics for online platforms came into effect in 2021, 265 complaints have been received and were settled as per law.

“Since the notification of the Rules, the Ministry has received 265 grievances, which have been addressed in accordance with the laid down procedure,” Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur informed the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) last week.

The Minister was replying to a query from a fellow parliamentarian related to the details of complaints that have been filed by individuals and organisations against violation of Code of Ethics by publishers of online curated content (OTT platforms) since 2021 and action(s) taken by the government and the regulatory body.

Thakur further said that The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, notified under Information Technology Act, 2000 on February 25, 2021 provides for a Code of Ethics to be followed by the publishers of online curated content and a three level grievance redress mechanism has been put in place to take care of complaints against content.

The three levels include Level-I, which is the publisher (OTT platform); Level-II consists of the self-regulatory body of publishers and Level-III, which is the Oversight Mechanism of the Central or federal government.

In the past also Thakur has emphasised on other platforms that the self-regulatory mechanism followed by streamers in India were working fine and government intervention is minimum in grievance redress procedure.