The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has prepared the draft of the policy on the OTT platform and it would issue a notification in this regard soon after scrutiny.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud gave the information while talking to the newsmen at the meeting room of his ministry at the secretariat on Monday, reports BSS.
OTT (over-the-top) is a media service offered directly to viewers through the internet.
Describing the OTT platform as a reality of growing demand, the minister said bringing hundreds of contents of the platform under a censorship process is very difficult.
As the country has no approval system for releasing cinema, drama, web series, or any other content on the OTT platform till now, the government has prepared the draft of the policy, he said.
Content creators of the OTT platform would be able to protect the culture and heritage of the country by following the policy after notification.
Referring to a recent meeting with his Indian counterpart in New Delhi, Hasan said India has issued a notification on February last in this regard.
“All OTT platforms of India shall follow the rules and actions would be taken in case of deviation of their policy,” he added.
The minister said that currently, social media is a part of mass media.
“The social media has given an unfettered opportunity to the people of expressing their own opinion,” said Hasan, also Awami League joint general secretary.
At the same time, he said, it was also seen that social media was being used to create instability in the society and to spread propaganda against the government or individual.
The minister said that the mainstream media are working properly. But some (people) tried to spread rumour and to create confusion among the countrymen through social media from home and abroad even during the COVID-19 situation, he added.
He said that his ministry has already been started many works including giving registrations to IP TV and online news portals to bring discipline.
But, he said that some specific people have been carried out propaganda from abroad by using some online news portals. "We have taken actions against them on behalf of the government through coordination of other ministries. But, in this case, many times we didn't get proper support which is needed from the service providers. For this, we are discussing with the service providers," he added.
The minister said that a decision has been taken to take actions against those specific persons as per the existing law of that country from where they carry out the propaganda.
He said that the RSF has published a report over the prime minister by using an extremely offensive ward.
"We, on behalf of the information ministry, have protested the news that we will take action if the news is not corrected. The office of the RSF is in Paris. A legal notice has been sent through France lawyer. They can't publish such report targeting any person as per the law of France or even the law of European Union," said Hasan.
