AVIA commentary news

The UK government has published its long awaited draft Online Safety Bill, two years after publication of the Online Harms White Paper. But can the bill deliver on the government’s ambitious manifesto commitment to make the UK the “safest place in the world to be online”?

Should user-generated content (UGC) on social media platforms be free from any regulation and the rule of law, simply because it is user-generated?

"Although it may seem like a good idea to ban Chinese state broadcasters from overseas platforms, it is both dangerous and counterproductive."

Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts Paul Fletcher has doubled down on criticism of the ABC for its response to potential local content obligations.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the editorial interference of Hong Kong and Macau’s public broadcaster management and urges the governments of the two special administrative regions to cease their attacks against press freedom. 

The new rules will play a pivotal role in tackling fake news, hate speeches, cybercrime, sexual harassment, explicit content, and make social media a more secure place.

The Information Technology establish a soft-touch, progressive institutional mechanism with a level playing field featuring a code of ethics and a three-tier grievance redressal framework for digital news publishers and OTT platforms.

In 23 years of operation, Netflix has taken down just nine TV shows and movies from its streaming service at the behest of governments, the company has disclosed in a report. Five of those takedown requests were made by Singapore alone.

Recent media reports note that the Supreme Court has observed that the new OTT (over the top technology) rules have no teeth, going on to add that some platforms even show pornography in the absence of effective oversight.

Editors note: Gale Anne Hurd, a producer of films and television shows including the Terminator trilogy, Aliens, Armageddon and The Walking Dead, writes about the recent passage of a new copyright provision that targets streaming piracy, making it a felony to operate a large-scale, for-profit service.

Will the calls for censorship of OTT have a chilling effect on filmmakers wanting to express their take on the issues that plague India?

It’s been a minute since we last heard from Chris Cox, the man who at one time was, as WIRED put it, “effectively in charge of product for four of the six largest social media platforms in the world.”

Two of the central government’s legal advisers told the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led cabinet that some clauses in India’s new IT rules were beyond the scope of existing law and required parliamentary approval, which was circumvented in passing of the controversial IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Two seminars and a meeting, all devoted to regulation of OTT platforms, is what the I&B ministry admits to by way of consultation with stakeholders. No meeting with news organisations is mentioned.

Now that embattled Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) has tried (and failed) to withdraw its entries for some of the most distinguished journalism awards Asia has to offer, perhaps it’s time for the broadcaster, once considered to be the most credible source of news in the city, to cease its operations altogether. 

India announced a set of new regulations for the country’s social media companies and digital streaming websites aimed at holding these parties more accountable for the online content shared on their platforms, giving the government more power to police it.

These rules force digital news publishers and video streaming services to adhere to a cumbersome three-tier structure of ‘regulation’, with a govt committee at its apex, clearly to stifle dissent

The Digital Media Code fails to conform to, and, in fact, confounds, every settled constitutional mandate for lawmaking — the very obvious premise that law is to be made by the lawmakers i.e. the legislature and not the executive.

Netflix continues its track record of challenging the status quo by dabbling in linear TV. But what does this say about the good old linear model?

The BBC’s director general has warned of the “growing global threat to the free media” after the corporation was banned from broadcasting in China and Hong Kong.