In a gazette notification, on November 9, 2020, the President of India Ram Nath Kovind gave his approval for the regulation of all the online news, social media, and major video streaming platforms by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (Ministry of I&B). In this regard, an order has been issued by the central government.
Currently, the digital content, which includes news, blogs, shows, movies etc. being streamed on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other over-the-top (OTT) platforms, is not being regulated under any of the Indian laws and there is no autonomous body to govern the content of online media.
The union government has made amendments in the Allocation of Business Rules and has announced, that ‘films and audio-visual programmes made available by online content providers’ and ‘news and current affairs content on online platforms’ would be placed under the Ministry of I&B, who would be regulating, censoring, and monitoring the same. These would include Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, AltBalaji, and all OTT platforms. In addition to these, the law would also cover all digital content sources, which include online news sites, videos, and images that are being shared online.
Further to this announcement, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led Government of Kerala passed an ordinance to amend the Kerala Police Act to punish those found guilty of spreading offensive and threatening social media posts. This new amendment gave more powers to the Kerala Police to prosecute the persons who exploit social media to target women and children.
A new provision, Section 118-A, was added to the existing law Kerala Police Act 2011. The key provisions of the amended act included the following:
- Any person creating or sending offensive message or which is intended to offend or threaten another person, through any means of communication, is liable to face imprisonment of five years or fine of 10,000 or both.
- Police can slap criminal charges on citizens by interpreting any kind of communication through any medium as defamatory.
- It finds even ‘injury to the mind’ a reason for slapping criminal charges not just on the petition on the victim, but also anyone ‘in whom they have interest’ or as a suo motu act by a police official.
The Kerala Police Amendment Act, 2020 caused a major controversy as the amendment would enable any form of communication or publication to be subjected to interpretation by the police and impose criminal charges against anyone. In addition to this, it would be difficult for the government to control the narrative in the media, especially social media, in the wake of discussions of ongoing investigations by central agencies in the state. The Governor of Kerala, Arif Mohammad Khan had signed the LDF government’s ordinance into law.
The opposition parties in Kerala express complete disapproval towards the ru