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Friday, March 29, 2024
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HomeIndiaGovernanceOver 100 journalists write to Smriti Irani against online media regulation

Over 100 journalists write to Smriti Irani against online media regulation

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The letter says that the govt’s proposed move may drastically impact a medium that has made the media more open and democratic across the world.

New Delhi: Over one hundred journalists and other online media professionals from dozens of publications have written to Information & Broadcasting minister Smriti Irani, expressing their concerns over the ministry’s proposal to regulate online media.

The journalists include Raghav Bahl, M.K. Venu, Madhu Trehan, Nalini Singh, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Shivam Vij, Sanjay Pugalia, Aniruddha Bahal and Raman Kirpal, among others.

The letter says that bringing in legacy media structures – such as licencing and content regulation – may drastically impact a medium that is widely credited with making the media and information landscape more open and democratic across the world.

The I&B ministry had, in April, decided to constitute a 10-member committee to frame rules to regulate news portals and media websites. The letter is in response to that.

A statement quoted Venu, founding editor at The Wire, as saying: “Internet-based media, by its very nature, promotes broader democratic values globally and cannot be dealt with in the way national governments try to regulate or control traditional media.

“Internet-based media and global media aggregators like Facebook, Google have changed the content and distribution landscape in ways that national governments cannot easily control. Nor should they try to. It is a free democratic space and must remain as such,” he added.

Journalist Madhu Trehan, the co-founder of NewsLaundry, warned about the far-reaching impact that interfering with the citizens’ freedom of expression, online or offline, can have.

“Regulating the internet is a tricky thing. Its impact is enormous and far-reaching,” she was quoted as saying in the release. “The proposal to regulate (and its need at all) must be a consultative process in the most open and transparent way.

“The internet is the most important invention since the printing press, with a bigger impact than the press. To regulate the printing press would mean strangling thousands and millions of books down the ages that have transformed the world. That is the impact we are looking at. The internet is the printing press of the digital age. A proposal for its regulation must be debated threadbare before any action.”

A website, https://onlinefreedomfoundation.org, has also been set up to allow ordinary citizens to oppose the move to regulate online content, the statement said.

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