Prakash Javadekar meets with Digital News Publishers Association over new IT rules

Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar on Thursday interacted with the representatives of digital news publishers and informed them about the responsibilities placed by the new rules on digital news publishers. According to the statement issued by the Ministry, the Union Minister during the meeting informed that the new IT rules placed certain responsibilities on digital news platforms. The statement issued by the Minister read, "These include adherence to Code of Ethics such as the norms of journalistic conduct framed by the Press Council of India (PCI) and the Programme Code under the Cable Television Network Act (CTNA)." Prakash Javadekar meets major media publishers Stating that in order to further redress grievances of citizens, Javadekar in the meeting said that the rules have provided for a 3-tier grievance redressal mechanism of which the 1st and 2nd tier would be of the digital news publishers and self-regulatory bodies constructed by them. He further stated that the print media and TV channels have digital versions whose content is almost the same as that on the traditional platforms. Prakash Javadekar said that there are contents that appear exclusively on the digital platform. Accordingly, the rules seek to cover the news on digital media so as to bring them at par with the traditional media. The Ministry said, "The participants while welcoming the new rules stated that TV and print news media have been following the laid down norms of the Cable Television Network Act and the Press Council Act for a very long time. Further for publishing the digital versions, the publishers do follow the existing norms of the traditional platforms. They felt that they should be treated differently than those news publishers who are only on the digital platform." Centre's new guidelines for OTT platforms, social media & online news On February 26, the Centre released ' Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021'. Under the new rules, the government decided to develop a three-tier mechanism for the regulation of OTT platforms, social media content and digital news media. Publishers of news on digital media would be required to observe Norms of Journalistic Conduct of the Press Council of India and the Programme Code under the Cable Television Networks Regulation Act thereby providing a level playing field between the offline (Print, TV) and digital media. A three-level grievance redressal mechanism has been established under the rules with different levels of self-regulation. Level-I: Self-regulation by the publishers; Level-II: Self-regulation by the self-regulating bodies of the publishers; Level-III: Oversight mechanism. With the new rules in place, social media platforms will be required to disclose the first originator of a mischievous tweet or message. This could be in relation to the sovereignty of India, the security of the state, relations with foreign states, rape, etc. Moreover, social media platforms and OTT players would be bound to remove any content flagged by authorities within 36 hours and then set up a complaint redressal mechanism with an officer being based in the country to address the matter. With this, the I&B Ministry was given the power to regulate policies related to news, audio, visual contents and films available on online platforms.

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Prakash Javadekar meets with Digital News Publishers Association over new IT rules

Prakash Javadekar interacted with the representatives of digital news publishers & informed them about the responsibilities placed by the new rules.

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