26 year old Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr. Beast, runs the world’s most subscribed YouTube channel with 307 million subscribers. Known for generosity and stunts, he has spent 24 hours in an ice house, given away 26 Teslas on his 26th birthday, and gave $5 million to help 2,000 amputees walk last year.
If India’s attempt at mass-regulation of online content via the draft Broadcast Bill becomes law, Mr. Beast will have to register as an “OTT Broadcaster” with the Indian government, set up a grievance redressal system, join a “self regulatory organisation” chaired by a retired Indian judge, and set up a “Content Evaluation Committee”, comprising of advocates for women and child welfare, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and minority communities to certify the content before he uploads it on YouTube.
Others like Virat Kohli on Instagram, Nisha Madhulika and Technical Guruji on YouTube, Anand Mahindra on Twitter, and even smaller content creators, will need to bear the pain of such onerous compliance, if they cross an as yet unspecified threshold and if their activities are seen to be a part of a “systematic business activity”, including marketing. It would impact the Prime Minister of India, who recently crossed 100 million followers on X, posting about government initiatives.
The latest version of the draft Broadcast Bill, not yet released for public consultation, also ensnares in its regressive net, people posting about news and current affairs on social media, both in India and abroad. While spared the overhead of setting up a content evaluation committee, they’ll still need to comply with the other requirements. Anyone creating news-related content, including analysis, anywhere in the world will have to sign up: if you run Google Ads on your blog, where you might write about the US Presidential Election, chances are you’ll be seen as a Digital News Broadcaster, and regulated in India. You will have to comply with an Advertising and Programming code, which is yet to be defined. For both OTT Broadcasters and Digital News Broadcasters, a Broadcast Advisory Council will handle user complaints if not addressed at the previous two or three levels.
The absurdity of such expectations illustrates how out of touch India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is with how the Internet works, in trying to forcefit the Internet into the outdated construct of cable television.
In a country where people are struggling to find jobs, many people are becoming online content creators to earn an income, and what starts as a hobby or a side-gig becomes a career. The Broadcast Bill sets out to kill that dream. Let’s not forget the impact that Indian governments’ content regulations have had in the past: following the Information Technology (IT) Rules 2021, both Yahoo News and Huffington Post ceased operations in the country.
Compliance burdens that render organisations unviable or prevent people from becoming online creators are by themselves a form of censorship, especially when the country already has laws that regulate illegal speech, and defamation is unfortunately still a criminal offense. The solution to lack of enforcement isn’t the creation of laws that will also be arbitrarily enforced. In a country as rich with diversity as ours, a three or four tier content evaluation regime will lead to the creation of a homogenized and less diverse media landscape. Mass regulation will stifle creativity and freedom of expression. One can argue that following the IT Rules 2021, there is already self censorship, especially in case of streaming services.
Parts of the IT Rules 2021 have already been stayed by various high courts, and while we still await verdicts that address some of those restrictions, the Government of India continues to make regulations and laws restricting our freedoms faster than courts than undo them.
In addition, the government of India plans to create additional rules for online advertising and social media platforms, which could well involve censorship or blocking, as well as demonetization on non-compliant online creators. The Bill does empower the government to direct Internet Service Providers or social media platforms to enforce compliance with this Bill, which could lead to censorship.
Fundamental to this issue of online speech regulation via the Broadcast Bill is a question of how online content should be treated: is streaming the same as broadcast? Streaming is much more than just consumption: it can be interactive and engaging, with multiple participants. Unlike broadcast, which is a one-to-many communication to the public, streaming is also one-to-one communication. It is also “pull content”: we seek out the content we view. It is typically viewed on our private devices, often in the privacy of our bedrooms, unlike cinema which is viewed in public. It can’t be treated the same as cable television. In August 2015, Mukul Rohatgi, then the Attorney General of India, in response to a petition to ban pornography in India, highlighted that “Geographic frontiers are no longer frontiers”, when it comes to online content, adding that “if someone wants to watch in the privacy of their bedroom, how can we stop that? These are now issues of 19(1) [Freedom of Speech]”.
“We don’t want to become a moral police,” he said. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting would do well to heed his words.
An edited version of this article appeared in the Economic Times, as a part of my TechNik column with ET.