Regulating OTT content need of the hour: Experts

Expressing his views at the session on ‘OTT: Cultural Pollution’, former information commissioner of India Uday Mahurkar said: “ OTT was introduced in 2018 and everyone knows what content is being served by them.”

Mahurkar is also president of the Save Culture Save Bharat Foundation, an NGO working against OTT platforms producing cheap and vulgar content.

OTT platforms are serving pornographic content that has led to increasing incidents of rape across the country. Strict regulations are required to check this cultural degradation, added Mahurkar.

“OTT platforms are a big threat to culture. Rapes are increasing, families are breaking and divorces are increasing due to Bollywood and OTT content,” he added.

“The first punishment for rape due to pornographic content was given to Ted Bundy in America. He had raped and murdered 30 women. Now, such incidents are happening with girls in India due to OTT content,” the former information commissioner said.

He listed production houses that were producing vulgar and pornographic contents.

Mahurkar also cited the case study of Haryana where the state government had given tablets to students with filters to check pornography.

“But students removed the filters to watch pornography. Even the Haryana government has accepted this,” Mahurkar said.

He said that due to lack of regulations on all social media platforms and OTT, the country is facing a lot of problems.

Mahurkar added that Australia, Brazil and several countries of Europe have banned use of cell phones by children.

Also present at the event, Swati Goyal Sharma, a journalist, listed several Bollywood movies that have produced vulgar content.

In a session on “Clash of Civilization”, Supreme Court lawyer Vishnu Shankar Jain asserted that the struggle is only for “our culture and symbols”. Heroes of Muslim and Hindu society are different, he said.

Jain talked about various cases pending in courts across the country related to Mandir -Masjid disputes.

He also referred to the recent controversy in Sambhal related to the Shahi Jama Masjid and Hari Har temple.

Jain is representing Hindu litigants in several of these cases.

Vivek Kaushik of Sanskar Bharati, a cultural organisation, stated “if you want to destroy a nation, then destroy its language and literature.”

Gautam Khattar, a YouTuber, stressed on propagation of culture.

Pankaj Saxena, a journalist, asserted, “We should not only know what is happening in our society, but it is very important to know what is happening in other societies.”

Akshat Gupta, who has written several books, stressed on making children aware of our culture.