I&B minister discusses new rules with digital news media organisations

'Held an interaction with Digital News Publishers Association today. They welcomed the new rules and offered few suggestions which I have noted,' said Prakash Javadekar

The Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar said Thursday that he held a meeting with The Digital News Publishers Association to discuss the newly notified rules for digital media. 

"In a follow up to meeting with OTT platforms, held an interaction with Digital News Publishers Association today. Discussed the new rules for digital media. They welcomed the new rules and offered few suggestions which I have noted," the minister tweeted. 

The association includes media organisations such as India Today, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Times of India and so on. 

The new digital media rules have asked for a three-tier grievance redressal for addressing grievances of citizens. These would consist of digital news publishers and self-regulatory bodies constituted by them.  

The digital news publishers would also be required to furnish some basic information to the Ministry in a simple form, which is being finalised and periodically they would be required to place in public domain the grievance redressal undertaken by them, the ministry said in a statement. 

“He (Javadekar) stated that print media and TV channels have digital versions whose content is almost the same as that on the traditional platforms.  However, there are contents which appear exclusively on the digital platform.  This apart there are several entities which are only 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 further.

The participants welcomed the new rules, but added that TV and news print media have been following the norms of the Cable Television Network Act and the Press Council Act respectively for a long time.  

Further, for publishing the digital versions the publishers follow the existing norms of the traditional platforms. The publishers said they feel they should be treated differently than those news publishers who are only on a digital platform.

The minister had met with OTT platforms' representatives last week, clarifying that there will be no government appointed member in the proposed self-regulatory body for OTTs that will address complaints under the new rules. 

The rules were notified on February 25, called the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, which will govern social media firms like Facebook, Twitter, Google and so on, messaging apps like WhatsApp and also OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Hotstar and so on.

The rules related to social media will be administered by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, while those for OTTs and digital media will be administered by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The meetings are a follow up to the rules with the minister addressing concerns of the impacted organisations.

The rules set up a classification of ‘publishers of news and current affairs content’ (“digital news portals”) as part of  ‘digital media’, and seek to regulate these news portals under Part III of the Rules  (“Impugned Part”) by imposing Government oversight and a ‘Code of Ethics’.

On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court issued notice to the Centre on a petition filed by the Foundation for Independent Journalism which, it said, seek to dictate content to digital news media platforms go beyond the scope of what is permissible under the IT Act and need to be struck down.