Barely a month after Amazon Prime Video’s Tandav faced the furore of people and had to undergo snipping of ‘contentious’ scenes, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, on Thursday, released a set of guidelines, titled Information Technology  (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. The move, viewed by many as a means to curtail the creative freedom of video-streaming platforms, comes three months after the government had first announced that OTT players will come under the ambit of the I&B Ministry.

According to the new rules, video-streaming platforms will have to follow a three-tier regulatory mechanism for compliance of ‘Code of Ethics’: self-regulation, regulation by the self-regulating bodies of the platform that will be headed by a retired Supreme Court Judge or high court judge, and finally, oversight mechanism by the central government. The last step will involve the I&B Ministry forming an inter-departmental committee for addressing grievances.