Anticipating a crackdown on digital platforms, media bodies and advocates have voiced their concern over the latest draft of the Broadcasting Bill, saying that it aims to enforce censorship by putting a compliance burden on the creators.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday, Anant Nath, Caravan Editor; Ritu Kapur, General Secretary of DigiPub News India Foundation, an organisation representing more than 90 digital news publishers; journalist Ravish Kumar, who now runs his own YouTube channel; and Advocate Apar Gupta, unanimously requested the government to be transparent about the Bill.

Ananth Nath, President EGI and Editor, Caravan, said that given the experience of the last 75 years and the inherent protections the Constitution provides for freedom of speech, there should be no need for additional regulation.

“The Constitution already outlines the limits of government restrictions in this area, and we have sufficient criminal laws in place. The proposals being made are alarming because they introduce additional layers of control. Any regulatory body where the government is the final authority poses a serious threat to democracy and contradicts the principles the government claims to uphold according to our Constitution.

“Both the Broadcast Bill and the IT Rules position the government as the ultimate arbiter, which is unacceptable. Any regulatory mechanism, whether good or bad, must be self-regulated. The government can participate, but it should not be the final authority or hold a majority influence,” Nath said.

Journalist Ravish Kumar said that people also want to hear the perspectives being shared by creators.

“We've created our own means of supporting ourselves while also providing livelihoods to others. Unemployment is a significant issue, and we're doing our best to address it within our limited capacity. We request the government to be transparent about the bill. Please share a copy of the draft bill with us. If the bill is passed as we're hearing, it could lead to the closure of smaller operations like ours, which would be detrimental not only to us but to the journalistic community and democracy as a whole,” Kumar said.

“I believe the government has more critical issues to address and shouldn't focus on regulating the thousands of YouTube creators who are offering alternative perspectives on the news. The popularity of these channels indicates that viewers want to hear diverse sides of the story,” he said.

As per Ritu Kapur, “There is also the fear that there will be censorship by compliance burden here. For instance, everybody, even if you are an individual YouTube creator, needs to put together a content evaluation committee now at their own expense. So just the cost of it may lead to a lot of people shutting down,” she said.

Advocate Apar Gupta noted that while the Bill excludes news and current affairs from a Content Evaluation Committee (CEC), digital news broadcasters will still need to establish a CEC since their channels will feature more than just news.

He said, “All these creators and digital news broadcasters will have to join a self-regulatory organization. And they have to join that self-regulatory organization which the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting wants.

“An unlicensed broadcasting service is a criminal prosecution, with a term of imprisonment up to 2 years and for repeated violations, 5 years. Means you can close the channel, you can put a censure, you can also do an apology scroll. But you can also be imprisoned for 2 years,” he observed.

Adding to this, Nath said that the government has created six or seven laws in civil space and in criminal space to check the same piece of content.

“Caravan, which otherwise would have come under only the new Press Act, will now have its YouTube channel fall under IT rules, the Data Act, the Broadcast Bill, and the criminal laws. Same piece of content can be targeted under five to six different legislations. The government has enough handle; five different agencies have different handles to start any kind of sitting against us,” he said.