Amazon Prime Video has been embroiled in quite a few raging controversies lately for its OTT content.
Saif Ali Khan’s political drama ‘Tandav’ faced legal troubles as multiple FIRs were lodged against the makers for allegedly hurting ‘religious sentiments’.
Last week, Supreme Court even denied granting interim protection from arrest to Tandav’s makers and actors, saying ‘You cannot hurt religious sentiments’.
Another popular series on Amazon Prime – Mirzapur, too landed in trouble, facing allegations of “maligning the image of Uttar Pradesh and showing the state in a bad light”. Supreme Court has sent a notice and sought responses from Mirzapur makers and the OTT platform over the complaint.
And recently it came to be known that The Family Man 2 also might postpone their release on Amazon Prime, given the current controversy surrounding Tandav and Mirzapur.
Amidst the outrage, on Sunday, the Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Prakash Javadekar made a major announcement regarding OTT content; stating that the Ministry will soon issue guidelines for OTT platforms.
“We have received a lot of complaints against some serials available on OTT platforms. Films and series released on OTT platforms and digital newspapers do not come under the purview of the Press Council Act, Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, or Censor Board. We will soon come up with some guidelines for the OTT platforms,” said Prakash Javadekar.
Do you think OTT content should be regulated? Let us know in the comments below.
(In November last year, the government brought OTT platforms under Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s ambit. Previously, these platforms used to come under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology)