“Over The Top” platforms, most prominently known as OTT platforms, became a lifeline for all the cinephiles in the era of this pandemic due to COVID-19. When the complete world was shut inside their houses, as the government authorities of nearly every existing country declared a complete lockdown in their respective nations, the source of entertainment left for the people were the television, PC, Mobile, i.e. only the virtual aspects. But “Over The Top”, OTT proved himself and became the most famous and most loved platform for people ever, as a source of entertainment in various forms like movies and web series.
As we say, even the stones come with flowing water, in the same way with most virtues, OTT also brought some vices with it. As the government was not having scrutiny on these platforms, due to which the content created used to be too adult, and in contrast with this, there were no such restrictions. Because nowadays nearly every house has at least one smartphone, due to which even a child having zero sense of it, was having access to such adult content.
So, the government decided to have a scrutiny on OTT platforms which gave rise to a debate. Half of the people in favour of the government said that “Yes, the government should have a surveillance on them because, its unethical to create such content and even grant access to every age of people including them who don’t even know that what is all about, i.e. the children under 18 years of age.” On the other hand, some people had a completely different opinion on this, according to them it was wrong to have censorship on this, because this is the reality of society and everyone should bravely accept this, without feeling weird, because it’s the bitter truth of society and no one can deny that.
At last, the Government of India decided to have scrutiny on OTT platforms, like Amazon Prime and Netflix, etc. Undoubtedly, there will be no censorship on films on OTT platforms but there will be an institutional mechanism. “For films, we have CBFC, for TV we have programme code (BCCC), but we have nothing for the OTT. The same programme code (that is for TV) will be followed for OTT platforms.”, said Javdekar. He also added that ”We are trusting the platforms to bring age-based classifications themselves.” There may be one or more self-regulatory bodies of publishers. Such a body shall be headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court or a High Court or independent eminent person and have not more than six members. Such a body will have to register with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
I feel like there should not be complete censorship on the OTT platforms. It may be a bitter truth, but it is the truth of our society and we all should bravely accept it. It may be regarding linguistics, it may be regarding violence or it may be regarding sexuality, it exists in our society and it’s very much part of our society and no one can deny that. Now, if the question arises, what about the children? Then it’s as simple as it looks. Just the way every parent takes care about the food habits of their child, about their schooling, about the moral values for living in the society, in the same way, one can take charge of this thing. If one’s child is having access to the internet, his/her parent should decide that what he/she should watch based on his/her age. I think this can be proved helpful. Due to this, even the content shown will be realistic, it will work as a mirror to our society rather than showing something fictitious and completely unrealistic and illogical. As well as, the children below 18 years of age will have access to such content whenever they will be mature enough as their parents will have scrutiny on them.
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