Category: Media

The Government has come out with certain regulations for the social media, e-news platforms and OTTs. It is called Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules. Let us see the brief the gist of these regulations.

Publishers of news and current affairs content and publishers of online curated content must provide the I&B ministry about how and where they publish, the nature of content they release, the size of the subscription base within 30 days of publication of rules, or in 30 days from the start of their India operations.

E-news must publish monthly compliance report containing the grievances received and action taken.

There would be a three-tier grivance redressal mechanism. The complaint is received against the content. An acknowledgement is issued to the complainant within 24 hours. There is a decision in 15 days. In the three-tier mechanism, there is regulation by publishers, regulation by the body of publishers and lastly an oversight mechanism by the Centre.

The grievance mechanism is applicable to news media as well as other digital media. The self-regulating body would be headed by a retired judge of either a high court or supreme court or an eminent person in the field. The government-appointed oversight mechanism and an Inter Departmental Committee (IDS) would consist of the representatives of various ministries, empowerd to seek hearings on violation of code of ethics.

The joint secretary level or senior officer will be authorised to direct the blocking of content. There would be removal of content on the direction of court.

Digital media outlets must follow the code of ethics laid down under the Press Council of India and Cable and TV Regulation Act.

OTTs will have to categorise content into five age-based categories.

Social media platforms need to disclose first originator of mischievous messages which may lead to law and order problem.

The government calls it light touch regulations.

As the oversight mechanism is sought to be created through rules and not to by legislative backing, it is to be seen how far it is constitutional or within the ambit of law.

Disclosure of the originator of the message requires the breaking of encryption. It is going to difficult for the messengers to do this.

Platforms are asked to take into consideration India’s multi-racial and multi-religious context and exercise caution.

There seems to be clubbing of streaming content, social media and digital media — all under one umbrella. News on digital media from established TV channels and print media already comply with legislations, code and do self-regulation. It is social media that is fully unfettered. Rules are subordinate regulations However, these cannot be sweeping. Oversight authority could be used to arm-twist by the State and there could be a deluge of trolling on select media. The government must focus on a robust data protection legislation to regulate social media content. And news platforms must not be clubbed with social media.

In the redressal mechanism at the third tier, the publishers can be asked by an IDC to remove the content even before a judicial process declares it fake or otherwise damaging. The prescribed content can range from defamatory to threatening public order or violating decency or morality. Here there are chances of abuse.

SC had dismissed a petition against a request to ban a film on grounds of nudity and vulgarity. It said that the film should not be watched. These are the matters of art and entertainment. It had championed the artistic and creative freedom. Currently, SC expects the government to monitor OTT platforms. It is a decision the users take — to stream or not to stream. It constitutes a decision in privacy. It becomes moral policing. SC has suggested legislation, as the Code lacks teeth. The government has informed SC that the guidelines are the rules formed under the IT Act which has sections 67, 67A and 67B dealing with pornography and obscenity. There is punishment ranging from 3-5 years and additional fines can be imposed. The government feels there is no need to bring any new legislation.

Clubhouse is an audio-conferencing app. iPhone users have downloaded Clubhouse extensively. Though Clubhouse has good technical quality, it has some problems. There could be security and surveillance issues. There could be recording from the rooms, though chats are private. Sometimes the hacking is at the server level, for which there is little one can do. Once the phone is breached, it slows down, uses more data, apps crash suddenly and the gadget restarts. Data harvested in breaches is sold on the Dark Web. This Dark Web hosts transactions involving data, drugs, porn, software cracks, virus source codes and so on. It is necessary to have know-how to access the Dark Web, which is a part of the unindexed area of the city. People assume anonymity. Cybersecurity firms work to plug big data leaks and breaches. No cybersecurity solution makes you foolproof.

So far social media was restricted to text and visuals, but Clubhouse takes it old-fashioned voice. There are several thousand chat rooms here for conducting uninhibited conversations on diverse subjects. It is a major departure for the working of social internet. It has witnessed spectacular growth in short-term, from just a few thousands in the mid-2020. It has been set up by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth who met through tech circles in 2011, and built a prototype podcasting app — Talkshow. However, it was treated as a broadcast, and so they added a few people to participate in the conversation. In March 2020, they started Clubhouse where multiple people broadcast at once and allowed people to bounce between digital rooms. It caught on , as it is a new way to connect with one another. Andreessen and Horowitz’s venture firm invested $10 million into Clubhouse. They valued it at $100 million.

There is a class-action suit against Facebook since 2018 alleging that its Potential Reach measure was inflated. Facebook’s major source of revenue is the targeted advertising. Prices are dictated by many factors including the number of users likely to see the campaign. It was in the knowledge of Facebook that Potential Reach was inflated and misleading. Still no steps had been taken by the Facebook to rectify the situation. It had not deleted duplicate or fake accounts. Thus revenue is earned on wrong data. Facebook contends that Potential Reach is a free tool. It is optional for the advertisers to be guided by it. It has nothing to do with the delivery of ads.

The budgeting of the advertisers is affected by Potential Reach. Facebook has not fixed the tool to avoid inaccurate reporting about the audience. This is done to maintain its bottom line.

A bill is going to be introduced to make it easier for smaller news organisations to negotiate with Big Tech platforms. It is a kind of anti-trust bill. Big Tech firms are accused by news publishers of not sharing enough advertising revenue with them. This legislation will help the struggling news business. There is a decline in ad revenue for print and the media habits are changing. Smaller publishers feel that the bigger publishers get more revenue-sharing deals using Google’s ad sales technology. This bill will allow small publishers to take advantage of the group negotiations. They get the fair value when they act together.

5G has superior speed. It has superior data throughput. It has almost near-zero latency. It is instantaneous in response. This is of value in remote surgeries, gaming and autonomous cars. There is ability to handle big data. When Edge computing is used to process data locally (instead of the cloud) which is then transmitted to cloud for serious number-crunching assisted by AI, there is unique experience called augmented reality.

In OTT streaming, one big thing that happened is the emergence of transactional video on demand (TVoD), which is also called pay-per-view. Zee5 has introduced this in 2020. Eros Now and BookMyShow too followed suit. It is popular in the US and UK. A movie’s revenue stream has a major component of theatrical release — almost 67 per cent revenue. Digital releases contribute about 6 per cent of the total earnings. It is to be seen how TVoD creates an impact here. Theatre and digital releases is a hybrid model. To begin with, there is a theatrical release followed by an OTT premiere. Fresh releases could be shown through TVoD first and later through subscription libraries. TVoD empowers the audience to watch the content they pay for. Mostly digital releases happen after 6-8 weeks of theatrical release. This period could be shortened further, say for three weekends the movies are on the theatre circuit before putting them online. A smaller theatre window works better in favour of home viewing. Movies could be streamed for four weeks on pay-per-view basis and thereafter they are made available to paid subscribers.

TVoD appeals to an audience with a high disposable income. They can afford theatre but choose home viewing. It is a niche audience in India.

Koo is an indigenous version of Twitter. It has seen 3 million downloads in less than a year. It intends to expand by tapping the regional audience. Koo is currently available in five vernacular languages — Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi for Android phones. The English version is right now exclusive for iOs. It proposes to expand to 25 languages by the end of 2021. The logo is that of a little yellow bird. Koo has an easy interface. It has features like trends, feed, hashtag and so on. The profiles are sorted on the basis of profession, popularity and profile descriptions. Koo has been backed by Vokal, a local language content platform. Koo is not unique, and will find it challenging to establish itself as well as Twitter. It is early days yet for Koo.

Media, particularly print, has been affected by the Internet and digital media such as Google and Facebook. Media itself has remained lethargic about its revenue model, and expects others to try an appropriate model. Dominic Young with experience in News International and News Corp. launched Axate in 2018. It is a payment tool that enables publishers in the UK to avail of the paid subscriptions. Media available online can be accessed through Axate wallet. One can pay for a preferred article. This wallet works across the brands. The prices are set by the publishers. There are free offerings too after clicking to read a story, either for the rest of the day or week. Abroad, subscription-based models work for the market leader, say the New York Times. Others find it difficult to survive. In Axate model, the larger the network, the better it is. Currently, they have 30 British publications which use Axate. Most of these were previously free. They have some niche publications. There are wallet fill ups to keep them reading.

It is not desirable to exchange official information on WhatsApp by the government employees. A locally developed version of WhatsApp is required as the messaging application which could be downloaded from Google Play. Sandes is the alternative designed by NIC and it runs on both iOS and Android. It is developed in 2020.

It will be difficult to sustain the app unless NIC hands over the technical support of the app to a commercial firm.

It is an outcome of the concern of the government to transmit the data securely. Sandes is suitable for use on smart phones.