'Exercise caution': Centre's advisory to OTT platforms amid 'India's Got Latent' row

NEW DELHI: The ministry of information and broadcasting has issued an advisory to OTT platforms urging stricter age-based classification of content and compliance with the Information Technology (IT) Rules 2021.
The advisory comes close on the heels of row over an episode of YouTube show 'India's Got Latent' by Samay Raina, featuring podcaster and influencer, Ranveer Allahbadia, who made an "inappropriate" comment during his guest appearance.
The advisory outlined six key points aimed at online content publishers and self-regulatory bodies of OTT platforms, emphasising adherence to existing laws and ethical guidelines.
"This ministry has received references from Hon’ble Members of Parliament, representations from statutory organizations and public grievances regarding alleged spread of obscene, pornographic and vulgar content published by certain publishers of online curated content (OTT platforms) and Social Media," the ministry said in its advisory.

"In this regard it is stated that Part-IIl of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media, Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, interalia, provide for a Code of Ethics for OTT platforms, and a three level institutional mechanism for redressal of grievances relating to violation of the Code of Ethics. The Code of Ethics, inter-alia, requires OTT platforms not to transmit any content which is prohibited by law, undertake age-based classification of content, based on general guidelines provided in the Schedule to the Rules, implementation of access control mechanism for ‘A’ rated content to restrict access to such content by a child, and also exercise due caution and discretion," it added.
After the controversy broke, host Samay Raina deleted all episodes of 'India's Got Latent' from his Youtube channel.