A few months ago, it was being said that streaming video platforms such as Amazon Prime, Netflix are others needed additional licensing and permissions in India. This was mainly due to a plea by Justice for Rights Foundation who said that these platforms showcased content that was vulgar, pornographic, unethical, profane and a lot of other things that mom told me to not watch when I was 11. Well, the High Court ruled against them, much to our relief.

Online platforms are not required to obtain any licenses from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the content on online platforms is not being regulated by this Ministry

Basically, they wanted censorship over our beloved OTT platforms because of content that was PG13 in nature. What the petitioner failed to understand was the fact that MOST of these viewers were indeed adults, with the general common sense needed to not let such visuals affect them.

The reason why so many young adults moved to Netflix and Amazon Prime, was to be in control of what they want to watch, and when they want to, without a third-party calling the shots. These were decisions the viewers took consciously for our entertainment purposes.

Suggested read: Netflix just keeps on adding subscribers!

The internet is supposed to be a place for free-flow of information, and policing of this nature will only thwart the way users consume data. Moreover, how would this be different from televised propaganda, if someone else decides what is wrong for me?

And most importantly, if a user wants to watch an uncensored show online, but won’t get access to it even after paying, it will once again increase the rate of piracy which will damage the publishers themselves.

All in all, we are really glad that the court ruled in our favour and chose the right thing to do for the masses. I legit don’t remember the last time I watched TV, as most of you. Moving back to that would have been stepping in the wrong direction.