"I’ve reached a point where we’re already self-censoring based on the experiences we’ve had," said Tanmay Bhat, co-founder of comedy collective All India Bakchod. At the Mumbai edition of the #NAMApolicy discussion on online content regulation (read the reports on the Delhi edition here and here), industry executives and creators grappled with forthcoming regulations — even as much of their behaviour was shaped by regulations like the IT Act which already existed. Now that the Minister who headed the I&B Ministry when it announced its intent to regulate online content is no longer there, the fate of these efforts is unclear. But no announcement has been made about the committee, and whether it'll continue to be around or not. The panel on regulation of online entertainment content was moderated by Nikhil Pahwa, editor of MediaNama, and comprised Sameer Pitalwalla, founder of Culture Machine; Tanmay Bhat, a co-founder of the All India Bakchod comedy collective; Aamod Gupte, General Counsel at Eros International; and Uday Singh, managing director of MPA India, the Indian chapter of MPAA, which represents the six large Hollywood studios. This discussion was held at the Hilton in Mumbai, with support from STAR India, Amazon and Google. Regulation without trust: AIB's Tanmay Bhat pointed out that there needs to be trust in any regulatory system for it to work: "Regulation is going to have a crazy impact on the mental psyche of creators when they’re creating. I’ve reached a point where we’re already self-censoring based on the experiences we’ve…
