Give details on compliance in 15 days: Centre to OTT, digital media

Online news and OTT platforms have been given 15 days by the Information and the Broadcasting ministry to provide details on compliance with the new rules issued in February. The government said it wanted to establish "soft touch progressive institutional mechanism with level-playing field" featuring a Code of Ethics and a three-tier grievance redressal framework for news sites and OTT platforms.

The Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 prescribed, for the first time, how digital news organisations, social media platforms and OTT streaming services will be regulated by the government. The government said it wanted to establish "soft touch progressive institutional mechanism with level-playing field" featuring a Code of Ethics and a three-tier grievance redressal framework for news sites and OTT platforms. I&B minister Prakash Javdekar has said that people are happy with the guidelines, Javadekar had said while he also dismissed the charge that the stakeholders were not consulted before issuing the guidelines. He said a proper consultation was taken from the stakeholders in Mumbai.