Fifteen Indian streaming services and digital content companies have adopted a self-regulation code to pre-empt government censorship, the Internet and Mobile Association of India announced on Friday evening. Unlike a previous draft of this that was unveiled by the IAMAI, this one does not create a Digital Content Complaints Committee that can hear appeals from viewers and penalise streaming services. Instead, the new code relies on each OTT platform creating a three-member "advisory panel" that serves as an appeals body within the organisation itself. In that panel, two members are executives of the streaming service, and one is an "independent external advisor" who must not be employed by the company in any other capacity. It is unclear if the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, which has been in talks with the IAMAI over this issue, approves of the code -- we have reached out to IAMAI for comment on this. The signatories to the new code are Zee5, Viacom18, Disney Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, MX Player, Jio Cinema, Eros Now, Alt Balaji, Arre, HoiChoi, Hungama, Shemaroo, Discovery Plus, and Flickstree. This new code, called the "Universal Self-Regulation Code for OCCPs" (Online Curated Content Providers), follows weeks of internal wrangling at the IAMAI's Digital Entertainment Committee over the previous draft, which many members found unacceptable. After the previous code, some streaming services were taken aback that the IAMAI was approaching the government representing them without first gaining consensus. The situation led to the IAMAI's governing council telling members to go…
