licence raj for digital content creator

 licence raj for digital content creator

Broadcasting Bill, 2024 bears all the signs of being a digital authoritarian-ism project in order to control online narratives

Could Dhruv Rathee and Ravish Kumar’s YouTube videos have influenced voter preferences in the 2024 general election? 

This question concerns a Union government that asserted that it would return to power with an increased majority but was voted back as a coalition with a diminished mandate.

Broadcasting Regulation Bill, 2024 

Recognising a threat to its power, it aims to neuter digital creators under the Broadcasting Regulation Bill, 2024

 Two CSDS-Lokniti surveys

provide insights into 642 million voters and 924 million broadband connections. These surveys covered thousands of respondents and highlight the growing importance of digital media beyond the metropolises. 

The post-poll survey shows that 29% of respondents consume political material every day on digital platforms, with 18% doing so occasionally. 

While this is less than television (42%), it surpasses newspapers (16.7%) and radio (6.9%). 

Respondents accessed WhatsApp (35.1%), YouTube (32.3%), Facebook (24.7%), Instagram (18.4%), and Twitter (6.5%) several times a day.

hallenging the dominance of television news

This data suggest a “content election” or an “influencer election”, with digital media critical of the Prime Minister challenging the dominance of television news. 

Signs of control

there has been little change in his Cabinet of Ministers

 Ashwini Vaishnaw remains the Minister for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and has also been given the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) portfolio. 

This reflects a growing convergence and the interest of these ministries in controlling digital content.

 IT Rules, 2021 on February 25, 2021 

A formal legal basis to this censorial partnership was first established through the IT Rules, 2021 on February 25, 2021. 

It expanded MeitY’s powers, including a traceability mandate compromising end-to-end encryption on messaging services such as Signal. 

It also granted the MIB new powers to require registration and block digital news media and online entertainment streaming apps. 

Creating an autocratic weapon

completely control the expanse of digital content by 2021 law  ? 

Even with the IT Rules, 2021, the Union Government was unable to completely control the expanse of digital content. 

 “Grievance Appellate Committee(s)” 

So, it expanded them twice. First, on January 28, 2023 it created three “Grievance Appellate Committee(s)”, or GACs, headed by officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs, the MIB, and MeitY.

 They have heard 1,216 appeals and issued 1,089 secret orders to online platforms on the taking down of or for the reinstatement of content. 

power to order the removal of any digital content  

Then, on April 6, 2023, the IT Rules were amended to grant the Union government the power to order the removal of any digital content deemed “fake, false, and misleading”, which was claimed to be the “fact checking amendment”. This has been stayed by the Supreme Court of India on March 21, 2024.

Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2023

 on November 3, 2023, introducing an autocratic superweapon for digital censorship. 

In simple terms, if it passes into law, your favourite YouTube or Instagram creators who comment on politics and report the news will need to register and work at the discretion / uder  of the MIB. 

 it will “increase government powers, reduce transparency and accountability processes, and erode fundamental rights.…”

 Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2024

 This latest version has not yet been made public. Nor is the complete list of “stakeholders” who have access to it.

 According to multiple sources who participated in the MIB meetings, the Broadcasting Bill, 2024 is individually watermarked and provided only after signing undertakings.

Key highlights of the Bill

Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2024 

Instead of recognising constitutional limits, the Bill increases the Union Government’s command and control over digital media.

focus on three primary highlights

 

First, the Bill expands its scope to classify individual commentators 

as “Digital News Broadcasters” and content creators as “OTT Broadcasters”. The MIB can prescribe and change thresholds for subscribers or users, which, when met, require registration. 

Second, it creates additional compliances for online platforms

  and establishes a new safe harbour regime independent of the Information Technology Act, 2000. 

In addition to the IT Rules, 2021

it can demand registration, enforce censorship, and even require platforms such as YouTube to frame special compliances not only for news channels but also for creators such as Nisha Madhulika, whose latest video is about coconut laddu recipe. 

This law is designed for the MIB to exercise coercive and total control while outsourcing everyday censorship as a form of compliance to a private apparatus. 

Finally, the decision-making process for censorship relies on cumbersome / hard proactive compliances, a system of registrations and private self-censorship, and, on failure or whim, censorship and fines levied by the MIB. If that were not enough, most provisions in the Broadcasting Bill, 2024 are sufficiently vague, making them ripe for arbitrary enforcement.

It bears all the hallmarks of what Jagdish Bhagwati termed “a maze of Kafkaesque controls”, creating an overly bureaucratic and politicised system — a digital licence raj.

 This ex-ante regulation model aims to overcome the administrative burden of the notice-and-takedown approach, where the government struggled to censor each creator and online text or video one post at a time. In Modi 3.0’s mirage of continuity, the Broadcasting Bill, 2024 is a digital authoritarianism project, creating a public-private labyrinth to enforce censorship.

source the hindu