The government of India has announced that the new Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill 2024 has been paused and they will be working to revise the Bill. With this, they have said that a new Bill will be drafted, bearing in mind the well-being of online content creators, who want to be included in the Bill with OTT or digital news broadcasters.
Also Read: ChatGPT Free Tier Users Can Now Make Images With DALL-E 3
Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2024 Paused
In a statement released by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, they have said that they're making changes to the Bill and are open to taking suggestions on the same till October 15. After that, a fresh draft will be presented before the government.
In response, multiple recommendations/ comments/ suggestions were received including from various Associations. Ministry is holding a series of consultations with the stakeholders on the draft bill.
The Bill was initially drafted in November 2023 and was available in the public domain. After questions were raised regarding the Bill on social media, Trinamool Congress MP, Jawhar Sircar brought up the issue in the Rajya Sabha.
If the Bill was passed, the digital media content creators would have to set up a Content Evaluation Committee to go through the content. The recently revised version of the bill also sought to create guidelines on what these "content creators" could put up on the internet.
The stakeholders, who were initially asked to comment on the Bill. The multiple versions of the Bill had created confusion among the stakeholders and they asked if their comments and suggestions were needed in the November 2023 bill or the latest 2024 version of it. A report from Indian Express mentions a quote from a person, who requested anonymity, who said:
Are we supposed to send our comments on the November 2023 version of the now withdrawn draft, because a copy was never formally shared with us.
Once the Bill is passed by the government, it will go on to replace the existing 1995 Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act.