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Not a child’s play — Microdramas may face reality check
The booming microdrama app industry in India may be facing compliance challenges on various fronts, legal experts said. A review of several apps by ET suggests they could be pushing against the boundaries of some clauses of the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code under the Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2021. Concerns raised include the lack of a content rating system, statutory warnings and age verification, potentially exposing minors to mature themes, violence and drug use.
None of them have a dedicated children's category or parental controls as mandated by the guidelines, given the sexual content available. Further, there is a frequent absence of disclaimers as required under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA).
ShareChat-owned QuickTV, for instance, has titles such as Tu Hotty Main Naughty and Dirty Secret listed under the Adult Romance category. These microdramas explore themes such as age-gap relationships, common themes on international platforms.
ETtech
Episodes begin without warnings or age ratings. QuickTV, however, displays fine print at the bottom of the screen that reads, “By proceeding you confirm that you are of 18 years of age or above and accept the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.”
Kuku TV has titles like Oops my Husband is a Mafia Boss and Pocket TV has Gambler, where gangsters and gamblers alike are shown smoking without any disclaimers.
Under COTPA rules, all content on online curated content platforms need to have health spots, audio-visual disclaimers, and static tobacco warnings on-screen when consumption is depicted.
QuickTV, Kuku TV, Pocket TV and Flick TV didn't respond to queries.
“Microdrama platforms fall squarely under the IT Intermediary Guidelines,” said Mallika Noorani, senior partner at Parinam Law Associates.
“The definition of a ‘publisher of online curated content' is very clear. It means a publisher who performs a significant role in determining the online curated content being made available on their platform. With microdrama apps, they choose the titles that are part of their content library, so whether a show is two minutes or two hours, if it is available on their platform, they have to adhere to the guidelines.”
Kuku TV too has no age verification in place. Those signing up for its service pledge they are 18 and above when they agree to the terms and conditions.
“If you are below the relevant age of majority in your jurisdiction, you may access the Kuku Services / app only under the supervision of a parent/guardian and in accordance with applicable law which enables a minor in your jurisdiction to access such a service. However, in all cases, only persons of the age of majority are allowed to register an account on the services and will always be responsible for the operation of any such account,” according to its terms and conditions.
Noorani said this isn't enough under the Intermediary Guidelines.
“While it is not mandated in the guidelines to have a children's section, age-gating is a requirement,” she said. “Getting consent alone at the time of signing up is not adequate. These platforms need to have user profiles and ensure that age-appropriate content is displayed. It is explicitly mentioned that publishers who make available content or programmes classified as 'A' will implement a reliable age verification mechanism. Parental controls and a proper grievance redressal mechanism are also a must.”
Pocket TV does not allow users to set up accounts unless they confirm that they are over 13. This is curious too because while 13 is considered the minimum age for independent use in several states in the US, in India it's clearly 18. The shows have no ratings and disclaimers. To be sure, most overseas apps also don't have age verification or content ratings, ET found.
Flick TV is among the few platforms that have a content rating system that showed up as U/A 16+ right at the beginning of the show. But the app had minimal measures in place when it came to accessibility. Their original shows did not have closed captioning, subtitles and audio descriptions--all of which are mentioned in the guidelines. Only some of the foreign shows had subtitles. As per the guidelines, access services mean any measure through which the accessibility of online curated content may be improved for persons with disabilities.
A consultant who works with several Indian microdrama apps said one of the primary reasons why most of them hesitate to put in a disclaimer at the beginning is because the format is meant to be short and snappy.
“The business case in itself is driven by being quick and bite sized,” he said. “So the concern is that when disclaimers are put even for a few seconds at the start of a 60 to 90 second episode, the user will tune out. They have found that users expect to start seeing content from the first second. But as such, there is no exemption for such apps when it comes to Intermediary Guidelines. So they're looking at addressing these challenges at the app level rather than at the content level by getting users to accept stringent terms and conditions.”
Source: EconomicTimes
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