We write to Justice AP Shah and IAMAI on self-censorship by Hotstar

IFF has written an open letter to Justice A.P. Shah and shared a copy of it with the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). In it we have expressed our concerns of self censorship beginning to permeate across online video platforms. We have sent this as a response to three recent developments. First, the Government filed a counter affidavit before the Supreme Court last month in which it endorsed self-regulatory institutional mechanisms for domains like social media. Second, the Minister of Information & Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar met with industry players setting a 100 day timeline for market participants to agree on a code of conduct and adjudicatory mechanism. Third, Hotstar India’s largest online curated content providers banned an episode of Last Week Tonight which dedicated an 18 minute segment to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Therefore, we have written to Justice Shah to take cognizance of these developments and the risk the IAMAI’s self regulation code poses to people’s right to receive and impart information.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://internetfreedom.in/read-our-follow-up-letter-to-justice-a-p-shah-on-self-censorship-by-hotstar-and-the-iamais-self-regulation-code/