The IT Rules (2021) [archive] may be amended to include and define “obscene content” on the internet, encompassing social media platforms, OTT platforms, and digital publishers, such as news outlets, according to a Hindu report.
If the Supreme Court accepts the government’s approach to defining “obscenity”, the amendment will severely impact how creators produce and distribute content online.
The IT Rules, 2021, refer to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Both The Hindu and The Indian Express have cited the government’s submission to the Supreme Court during an ongoing case, as presented by an advocate for the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
How is the government defining ‘obscenity’?
According to the news reports, the government is making these changes to Part 3 of the IT Rules, titled “Code of Ethics and Procedure and Safeguards in Relation to Digital Media,” which covers online streaming platforms and digital publishers, including news outlets.
The term “obscene” could encompass a wide range of content and may prohibit material that includes defamatory allegations, half-truths, anti-national attitudes, or criticism of social, public, or moral life in the country, as per the documents seen by The Indian Express.
Similarly, the Hindu reports that the rules would include an overarching definition for “obscenity”, as it might instruct online platforms to avoid content that offends “good taste or decency”, presents “criminality as desirable”, shows “indecent, vulgar, suggestive, repulsive or offensive themes”, or uses “visuals or words which reflect a slandering, ironical and snobbish attitude in the portrayal of certain ethnic, linguistic and regional groups”. The code contains 17 such restrictions, as per The Hindu.
According to the Indian Express report, the government may amend the IT Rules and regulate content to exclude the following:
- Offending good taste or decency
- Deriding any race, caste, colour, creed or nationality
- Attacks on religions or communities
- Anything obscene, defamatory, or containing deliberate falsehoods, suggestive innuendos or half-truths
- Incitement to crime
- Promotion of anti-national attitudes
- Criticism, maligning or slandering of individuals or specific social, public or moral groups
- Denigration of women, children or persons with disabilities
- Visuals or words reflecting a slandering, ironical or snobbish portrayal of ethnic, linguistic or regional groups
Unnamed government sources told The Hindu that the government will accept these amendments to the IT Rules only if the Supreme Court approves them after a public consultation.
Why the IT Rules Matter?
India has no law that mandates censorship for OTT platforms; however, the government’s Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, 2021, effectively fills this gap through self-regulation. As MediaNama previously reported, OTT industry teams treat this framework as the “bible” for Standards and Practices, with lawyers closely reviewing and sanitising content before any release, a process widely known as “content sanitisation”.
Therefore, the government’s broad definition of “obscenity” can have a significant impact on how content is created and flows on the internet. For example, what does “offending good taste or decency” mean? How is “anti-national attitudes” defined? More importantly, who defines it? Who, and what, will be included in “moral groups”? The same question applies to each and every adjective and noun used in the above-mentioned alleged prohibitive list.
Impact on Free Speech
To illustrate how varying and biased definitions can have a severe impact on free speech, we can refer to the “public mischief” cases filed against government dissenters and critical voices following the Pahalgam attacks. As seen in cases like the Dr Medusa incident and the recent Ashoka University professor case. Such vague accusations can often lead to severe real-life consequences, including reputational and career damage, without any solid legal basis for prosecution, only impacting the free voicing by instilling a fear, especially when the state machinery and the resources are (mis)used to make the legal and investigative process itself a punishment.
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It is also significant to note that the Government of India recently banned over 25 OTT apps that were producing and distributing “obscene content”. Similarly, in another instance, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court, asking for the formation of a new regulatory body, the National Content Control Authority, to regulate and prohibit the sexually explicit content on OTT and social media platforms.
Why are we regulating obscenity?
To understand how and why we landed on regulating obscenity on the internet, we have to recall the viral moment from Samay Raina’s YouTube comedy show titled “India’s Got Latent” and the controversy it followed, featuring one of India’s famous podcasters, Ranveer Allahabadia, popularly known as BeerBiceps.
When Ranveer Allahabadia made those allegedly controversial comments, there was widespread public outrage, which tried to define and limit the extent of free speech. The outrage involved Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, and a case was eventually registered in Guwahati, Assam. Among other charges, public obscenity was also listed in the FIR.
Later, when Allahabadia approached the Supreme Court to grant him protection against arrest, the court granted him interim relief, stopped filing further FIRs, and asked him to cooperate in the investigation. However, along with this, the court also asked the government to consider regulating the obscene content on social media platforms.
During the same controversy, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued an advisory to OTT platforms, asking them to comply with the IT Rules and other Indian laws that cover obscenity, such as the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986, or the POSCO Act.
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