CBFC member Vivek Agnihotri welcomes OTT guidelines

Vivek Agnihotri, Member of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) and Cultural Representative of Indian Cinema at ICCR reacted positively to the government’s decision to impose stringent guidelines on social media and over-the-top (OTT) platforms.

Director Vivek Agnihotri says, “There has been a demanded since a long time specially from teachers, parents, activist to have a control on the perversion on OTT platforms. It is in a way good, to know that the new guide lines address it. They also will be considering the women who are objectified or any kind of disrespect shown towards women, which is a very good move. Secondly, the most important one, is that they have also made sure that if anyone has an issue, they can sort it out within 15days after being registered within 24 hours, this also allows the public to be involved and feel heard. Now we would also have an idea who we will be talking to specially with regards to social media, which I think is a good thing! I believe guide lines should be there and this is a good move.”

Earlier on Thursday, the Union Government came up with new stringent guidelines for social media platforms along with code of ethics for OTT platforms and digital media. The Centre announced sweeping regulations for social media firms like Facebook and Twitter as well as OTT players such as Netflix, requiring them to remove any content flagged by authorities within 36 hours and setting up a complaint redressal mechanism with an officer being based in the country.

Social media platforms will be classified under two categories — social media intermediaries and significant social media intermediaries — with the latter being subject to greater obligations.

For OTT and digital media platforms, the government has set up three-level grievance redressal mechanism under the rules, with different levels of self-regulation.