In the midst of the ongoing debate over the content on OTT platforms and the need for censorship, actor Salman Khan expressed his displeasure with the vulgarity on these platforms and asked filmmakers to refrain from using abusive language in their content.
“I believe there should be censorship in the medium” (OTT). All of this vulgarity, nudity, and swearing needs to stop. They are suitable for children as young as 15 or 16 years old. Would you mind if your young daughter saw it? “I just think the content on OTT should be checked,” the actor was quoted in various reports as saying.
The Bollywood superstar stated that cleaner content will appeal to a larger audience and questioned why OTT platforms should not be censored in the same way that films and television channels are.
The actor’s remarks come at a time when the government has also asked these platforms to limit obscenity. Anurag Thakur, Minister of Information and Broadcasting, recently warned OTT platforms that vulgarity and abusive language are not acceptable in the name of creativity.
The minister stated that the government will not hesitate to take harsh action to prevent the use of abusive language and vulgarity in OTT content.
“These platforms were given freedom for creativity, not obscenity, and when one crosses the line, hurling abuse in the name of creativity cannot be tolerated,” Thakur said.
He went on to say that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting will not hesitate to change the rules.
The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, establish a Code of Ethics for online curated content publishers to follow.
There is currently a three-stage mechanism in place to deal with content on OTT platforms.
