Broadcast Bill: Why Does Govt Want to Censor Influencers in the First Place?

Draft Broadcast Bill withdrawn; creators welcome move, but concerns about content freedom remain.

After massive backlash from digital news broadcasters, content creators, and social media influencers, the government of India has reportedly 'withdrawn' the draft of the new Broadcast Bill which was leaked in the public domain.

The draft Bill was shared by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting with select stakeholders, including streaming services and major tech firms, a move that was strongly criticised by the content creators and digital news portals.

Welcoming the reported withdrawal, Nikhil Pahwa, founder of Medianama who had accessed the contents of the leaked draft Bill said that it should not have existed in the first place and that the government's step back does not mean that the citizens' right to create and consume content is still not under attack.

Pahwa also questioned the secrecy around the Bill and the rationale behind sending it to select stakeholders.

"From the statement that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has issued on Twitter, it appeared like they have gone back to the previous draft (of November 2023), and will continue to do closed door consultations with the industry till 15 October. This suggests that there's no plan for a public consultation, and the Bill can be expected to be tabled in the Winter Session of Parliament," Pahwa said in a statement.

"I expect, in the final version, that the Ministry will limit the scope of the Bill to online news entities and streaming services, because they still need to validate the IT Rules (2021) and their subsequent versions, which are being challenged in Court as being not backed by law. They’ll also incorporate all the provisions from the Cable Television Networks Act because this Bill is supposed to replace it," he added.

How Draft Bill Spelled 'Censorship By Compliance'

A quick overview:

• Under the proposed regulations, creators "beyond a certain threshold" would have to register with the Indian government within a month of the Bill being passed.

• The creators would also have to register with and adhere to a three-tier regulatory structure similar to what is applicable for OTT streaming platforms.

• Creators who broadcast news and current affairs, and get revenue via advertising or paid subscriptions or monetise their social media content in any manner would have been regulated as Digital News Broadcasters.

• Moreover, news broadcasters and digital creators would also have to adhere to a three-tier mechanism put in place by the IT Rules, which includes every creator having to appoint a grievance redressal officer, signing up with a self-regulatory organisation, and a government constituted Broadcast Advisory Council.

• Such news broadcasters would also need to comply with a Programme Code and an Advertising Code prescribed by the government.

• Creators who do not broadcast content related to news and current affairs would be regulated as 'OTT Broadcasters', and will need to adhere to similar regulatory mechanisms.

'Advertising Industry Silent in Its Response To the Bill'

Under the draft Bill, advertising networks would be termed as 'Advertising Intermediaries' which primarily "enable buying and selling of advertising space on the internet or placement of an advertisement on online platforms without itself endorsing the advertisement, and should not include an advertiser or broadcaster," Medianama had reported.

This would effectively mean that a YouTube channel or a blog that broadcasts news or related content and runs ads or has paid subscriptions would come under the regulations as Digital News Broadcasters.

The laws would have effectively impacted all social media platforms, OTT platforms, and also services like Amazon and Flipkart.

"The advertising industry is still likely to be covered because the industry has been silent in its response to this Bill," Pahwa said in his statement on Tuesday.

'Draft of Bill Did Not Cover Social Media Users Last Year'

In his conversation with The Quint earlier, Pahwa had explained how the Bill is different than the IT guidelines that have also been challenged legally.

"Some parts of it are just the same in the sense they are meant to legitimise these rules. This law is meant to legitimise the rules because they were being challenged in court," he said.

"But there are parts of this Bill which go above and beyond that, including, for example, expanding the scope to a global user base of the Internet. Second is that they have added that Content Evaluation Committee layer which is not there in the IT rules, and I think just the fact that they've included users of social media in the scope of the Bill is what makes a huge difference because the previous version of this Bill explicitly excluded those who are on social media from its ambit," Pahwa told The Quint.

"But I think what we've seen is that in the last elections, there are social media users and some TV show hosts who've now become YouTubers, who seem to have had an impact on the narrative. So, this Bill seems to be a mechanism to bring them under the ambit of this Bill," he had said.

After the withdrawal, Pahwa on Tuesday said: "The tricky part for the Ministry relates to covering online influencers and social media users under this Bill: there are already online influencer guidelines, but the withdrawal of this Bill is largely owing to their backlash to this Bill. Importantly, I expect applicability of the Bill to be restricted to Indian citizens, given the backlash regarding the global applicability of the secret draft, which was unenforceable to begin with."

'Enough Laws That Stifle Freedom of Speech Already'

Days ahead of the withdrawal of the Bill, Pahwa had told The Quint that industry stakeholders had expressed serious concerns over the Bill.

"They're concerned about the impact that this bill has in terms of the scale and the scope of its coverage; and also how much bureaucracy gets added and how much cost gets added in terms of compliance for creators, whether they're individual creators or they are companies as such," Pahwa told The Quint.

"And it seems to be a mechanism to just give more power to the government and effectively reduce the power of free speech in the country. So, they are concerned about the implications for everyone. Obviously, I can't mention specific players and their specific concerns," he said.

"We have reasonable restrictions to our fundamental right to free speech under the Constitution. There are laws against against defamation. In fact, India is one of the few countries in the world where defamation is actually a criminal offence. And there are rules and laws under the IT Act which enable the government to censor illegal speech, including speech that impacts the integrity and the sovereignty of India. So, it's not that the government doesn't have enough power to regulate speech," he said.

There are regulations for broadcast under the Cable Network Televisions Act, which the leaked Bill reportedly sought to replace.

"So, many of the shows that we watch on OTT and streaming, we would never be able to watch them on broadcast, because they would just not be allowed. I mean, you have instances where the word 'breast' is beeped out on TV shows and even excluded from subtitles at times. And it's just a part of the anatomy. What we are seeing over here is an attempt to convert the internet into television by forcing internet users and internet content creators to conform to the same regressive and restrictive rules, and I think we need to put a stop to this," Pahwa said.

On Tuesday, Pahwa said that this doesn’t mean that Indian citizens and their right to consume and create content won’t be affected, and that we won’t be left with regulatory burdens as a form of censorship.

"There should be another consultation, given the scale and scope of impact on our fundamental rights, and the path taken should reduce burdens on legal speech rather than adding to them," he said.