The need for more regulation with the surge in online content

The online media industry has now seen steady growth over the past decade. From web-based applications hosting movies and TV shows to just video streaming applications, the world has seen a lot of platforms emerge, especially lately, and continues to do so going forward in the future. The recent trend of using the internet to watch video content from the comfort of people’s homes has spurred this revolution in viewing practice. This has also stimulated and incentivized the debate on whether regulation of online content is needed, and if yes, to what extent.

If we look around the world, regulation of online content is taking its course unwaveringly. For example, in Singapore, the regulatory body issued a code of practices for OTT and video-on-demand services to follow from 1 March 2018. Now, they have to classify their content on the same basis as offline films. They are further asked to display the ratings of the content and the elements contained in them explicitly before it starts to stream. In Australia, the regulatory body assessed that Netflix’s own tool can examine and classify their content with 94% accuracy. They were hence given the freedom to classify their content using their own tools.

The online content platforms are still in a very budding and embryonic stage across the world. The freedom of expression that these platforms enjoy is the reason for their popularity. But, with this freedom comes the need for regulation to not harm society and its sentiments. This is the time when the tastes and preferences of the viewers are becoming more diverse every day and the number of regional language content creators is on the rise, which makes regulation essential.