Anurag Thakur spoke in Hindi and his short message was translated into English. Thakur said, “Abusive language in the name of creativity will not be tolerated. The government is serious about complaints about the increase in abusive and obscene content on OTT platforms. If it is necessary to make changes to the rules on this subject, the ministry is ready to think about it. These platforms have had freedom of creativity, not obscenity. And when someone crosses a line and then abuses it, rudeness in the name of creativity cannot be accepted at all. Whatever action is needed on this, the government will not back down.”
Abuse, rudeness in the name of creativity cannot be tolerated. On the complaint of the increase in pornographic content on OTT, the government… https://t.co/lAuQOE82nT
— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) 1679230581000
Explaining the current censorship system, Thakur said, “The process so far is that the producer has to resolve complaints received at the first level. 90 to 92 percent of complaints are resolved by them by making the necessary changes. The next level of complaint resolution is at their association level, where most complaints are resolved. At the last level, it is the level of the government, where measures are taken at the level of the departmental committee, according to the rules in place. But somewhere the complaints have started to increase in recent days and the ministry takes this very seriously. If there is a need to make a change, we are ready to consider it.”
Last year, India’s Supreme Court rejected a petition calling for a new OTT censorship system. A bench consisting of Chief Justice UU Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi is said to have heard the plea filed by Mirzapur resident Sujeet Kumar Singh to set up a preview committee that would review all forms of OTT content before it is released. The Court said such a process was not feasible.
