Malaysia has started licensing social media and messaging platforms to control the content uploaded. Only platform owners need to register instead of users. In India, the government wants all digital news broadcasters to be registered for the same purpose. What makes this proposal unique is that anyone producing news and current affairs content needs to be registered.
This includes influencers, social media video producers, and online news. All digital news broadcasters are required to register with the government, establish an evaluation committee that reviews all content before publication, and appoint a complaints handler. Failure to comply could result in digital news broadcasters being jailed.
The Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill will put all online media on the same level as traditional broadcasters such as TV stations and newspapers. The proposal to pass the bill is now being opposed by netizens because it is so rare that it causes anyone who reports news even just on social media to be registered. The cost of establishing a content evaluation and complaints committee should also be borne by yourself.
As a result, according to opponents of the bill, it is an attempt by the government of PM Narendra Modi to restrict the freedom of speech of the people of India. In the last general election, the BJP party led by Modi failed to get a big victory as expected. Among the given factors are online news producers who refute various government claims and correct them if they are unfounded.
Violence against minorities and the poor was also exposed by online media that were not bound by the previous bill that gave the government the power to shut down their operations for "presenting unverified news". In 2019, for example, internet services were blocked for 552 hours in Kashmir for "security reasons". The video that was successfully smuggled out shows the program carried out by the Indian security forces on the Muslim population.
A worrying development in recent times is the actions of several countries that tighten the control of online activities. America wants to ban TikTok, the UK wants to control social media and Malaysia wants to prevent DNS from intercepting banned sites.