The Indian government has said that over 4,000 digital news publishers and OTT platforms have given details of their operations, though such services are not required by law to obtain a licence from the government or register themselves.

“Since the notification of these Rules (IT Rules of 2021), over 4,300 digital news publishers and OTT platforms have furnished their information to the government,” Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting L. Murugan informed the Rajya Sabha or Upper House late last week.

The Government had notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 on February 25, 2021 under IT Act, 2000 under which the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting administers rules relating to content in digital sphere.
The Minister further added that Part-III of the rules provides for a Code of Ethics for digital news publishers and publishers of online curated content or OTT platforms.

It may be pertinent to mention here that platforms like YouTube, which hosts mostly user-generated content, has still not come under government’s scrutiny for risqué content, though many YouTube channels have been ordered to be taken off in India by the government for carrying content described as anti-nation and working against the sovereignty of the country.

While pointing out that curated OTT platforms were under obligation to not transmit any content prohibited by law and that such services were required to undertake age-based self-classification of content, Murugan explained publishers, however, are required to put in place adequate safeguards for restricting age-inappropriate content for children with adequate access control measures.
The Minister was responding to a question from a fellow parliamentarian in Rajya Sabha on, apart from other issues, the number of digital news platforms and OTT service providers registered with the government under the self-regulatory framework and whether the said framework was designed to protect children and India’s cultural values.

Interestingly, the government, responding to another set of questions in Rajya Sabha on online news publishers and TV news channels, admitted that there were no rules at present that mandate their registration or seeking a formal nod from the government to start operations.

“There is no requirement of registration by the online news publishers,” the Minister noted while replying to a questions on whether it is mandatory for all online news channels to be registered with the government.

He added that functioning of satellite TV news channels are regulated under the ‘Guidelines for Uplinking and Downlinking of Satellite Television Channels in India, 2022’.