The Bill That Never Was: The Comeback, Resistance, and Downfall of the Broadcasting Bill

tl;dr

After concluding consultations on the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2023  (“Broadcasting Bill, 2023”), the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (“MIB”) reportedly circulated a watermarked copy of the revised draft Broadcasting Bill, 2024 with a select set of stakeholders after holding private, closed-door meetings with them. Although the 2024 Bill was never officially published by MIB, several unofficial copies of the 2024 Bill were circulated online. The 2024 Bill reportedly imposed compliance obligations on digital creators impacting their online free speech and creative expression, increased the ambit of persons/ entities regulated under the Bill, retained and introduced ambiguous definitions for significant provisions, and negatively impacted users of online platforms. Around mid-August, multiple news outlets reported that MIB asked the ‘privileged stakeholders’ to return physical copies of the Broadcasting Bill, 2024 “without any feedback” and that MIB is “withdrawing”/”reconsidering” the 2024 Bill. Although MIB put out a statement after the publication of these reports, it neither acknowledged the 2024 draft nor clarified any of the other questions raised by stakeholders regarding the closed-door consultations or the revisions to the Bill. MIB’s response to our RTI on these closed-door meetings provided some information but still failed to acknowledge the 2024 Bill. Through this post, we hope to summarise the unceasing, confusing, and concerning developments around the Broadcasting Bill that have occurred since late July 2024.  

Important documents

1. Draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2023 (link)
2. IFF’s First Read on the Broadcasting Bill, 2023 (link)
3. IFF’s Comments on the Broadcasting Bill, 2023 (link)
4. IFF’s letter to MIB requesting publication of comments received (link and link)
5. RTI application seeking copies of consultation responses (link)
6. Letter to MIB providing consent for sharing our comments (link)
7. Letter to MIB regarding their email seeking consent (link)
8. IFF’s letter to MIB requesting public consultation on the revised Broadcasting Bill, 2023 (link)
9. IFF’s post citing concerns regarding reported revisions and opacity in the consultation process (link and link)
10. MIB’s response to IFF’s post about opacity in the consultation process (link)
11. IFF’s letter to MIB seeking clarification on MIB’s response to IFF’s post (link) 
12. IFF’s RTI dated July 29, 2024 on the reported revisions and closed-door meetings (link) 
13. MIB’s response to IFF’s RTI filed on July 29, 2024 (link)
14. Open letter to MIB signed by creators (link)
15. IFF’s letter seeking clarifications on reporting around the reconsideration/ withdrawal of the Broadcasting Bill, 2024 (link)
16. IFF’s Cheat Sheet for Penalties under the Broadcasting Bill, 2023 (link)

Exclusive stakeholder consultations

The consultation process for the Broadcasting Bill, 2023 left us with mixed feelings – while on the one hand, MIB extended the consultation deadline for submitting comments on the 2023 Bill, on the other hand, MIB refused to release the comments received on its website publicly (read our letter to MIB requesting publication of comments here and here). Moreover, upon receiving requests under the Right to Information (“RTI”) Act, 2005 to share the responses or copies of the responses it received on the  Broadcasting Bill, 2023, MIB wrote to several individuals and organisations seeking their permission to share their consultation response with the applicant requesting it (see our RTI requesting redacted copies of the comments, our letter documenting consent for sharing our response, and our letter reiterating the need to make redacted comments publicly available here, here, and here). Although all the outcomes during the consultation process were not ideal, we appreciated MIB for engaging with stakeholders throughout the process. 

In contrast to its approach for the 2023 Bill, MIB chose a more secretive and elusive approach for holding consultations on the 2024 Bill. MIB conducted 4 closed-door meetings (that have been reported upon so far) with selective industry representatives, without representation from civil society, journalists, or other key stakeholders, to discuss revisions to the 2023 Bill. Further, MIB shared a unique, watermarked copy of the 2024 Bill with each ‘privileged stakeholder’ to trace leaks. Stakeholders were also asked to give an undertaking that they would not share the Bill further. We wrote to MIB twice (see here and here) demanding a broad-based, public consultation on the 2024 Bill. 

Reported revisions under the 2024 Bill

As per the revisions made in the Broadcasting Bill, individuals posting ‘news and current affairs’ may now be considered as ‘Digital News Broadcasters’ and may become subject to a ‘Code of Conduct’ similar to the one applicable to cable TV broadcasters. The 2024 Bill defined a ‘Digital News Broadcaster’ or a “publisher of news and current affairs content” as any person who broadcasts news and current affairs programs through a digital medium as part of a “systematic business, professional or commercial activity but excluding replica e-papers”. The 2024 Bill also defined previously undefined phrases “professional” and “systematic activity” as “a person engaged in an occupation or vocation” and “any structured or organized activity that involves an element of planning, method, continuity or persistence” respectively, as per reports. Thus, if it can be proved that a digital creator engages in even one of the four listed elements for qualifying as a ‘systematic activity’, i.e. planning, method, continuity or persistence, they would be covered under its meaning. Going by these reported definitions, which have been criticised for being too open-ended, vague, and overbroad, anyone from a civil society organisation, a content creator sharing current affairs updates online, to a person routinely posting on a Reddit thread on local news can be considered a ‘Digital News Broadcaster’. The 2024 Bill also introduced extensive penalties for platforms for failing to take down offending content, including potential loss of safe harbour privileges – meaning direct liability for third-party content for platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, etc. For more detailed information about the revisions under the Broadcasting Bill, see here, here, and here.

The 2024 Bill reportedly also classified broadcasting services that make curated content, unrelated to news and current affairs, available on a digital platform as a “OTT broadcasting service”. ‘Curation’ was also defined as the “selection, organisation and presentation of online content or information using skill, experience or expert knowledge”. The provision was riddled with ambiguous definitions and vague phrasing, resulting in confusion over its scope of applicability. The 2024 Bill reportedly also removed the qualification of being a “citizen of India” from the definition of a “person”. Such ambiguity left extraterritorial applicability to the discretion of the Union Government. 

Pushback by community, creators, and digital rights organisations

1. A group of digital creators who were appalled and distressed by the Broadcasting Bill, 2024 wrote to MIB voicing their concerns about the exclusionary consultation process conducted by the Ministry on the 2024 Bill and rights-infringing provisions under it. The open letter was signed by approximately 751 content creators and citizens. Their primary demand was that they be shown the 2024 Bill and included in any and all decision making processes around it. Creators also heavily contributed to the discourse online by engaging in public advocacy efforts. A non-exhaustive list of the informative material posted by digital creators is mentioned below:

• [August 02, 2024] [Video] Meghnad | Modi 240 wants to shut down ‪@MrBeast and ‪@dhruvrathee | Broadcasting Bill EXPLAINED! (link)
• [August 02, 2024] [Tweet] Post by MP Jawhar Sircar questioning MIB about revisions to the Broadcasting Bill in Rajya Sabha (link)
• [August 02, 2024] [Tweet] Post by Pawan Khera outlining that the Broadcasting Bill is a direct threat to our freedom of speech and independent media (link)
• [August 03, 2024] [Video] Anuradha SenGupta | Broadcasting bill will have a chilling effect: Prateek Waghre (link)
• [August 04, 2024] [Video] The Deshbhakt | What Is Modi’s ‘Secret’ Broadcast Bill | Plan To Control Independent Digital Media? (link)
• [August 01, 2024] [Video] Aiman (link) (link)
• [August 01, 2024] [Comic Strip] Sanitary Panels (link)
• [August 01, 2024] [Video] Dr.Medusa | Direct Attack on Freedom of Speech? (link)

2. Experts, digital rights advocates, journalists, creators, and several other stakeholders took to the print medium to voice their concerns and/or suggestions on the Broadcasting Bill. A non-exhaustive list of opinion pieces and interviews are listed below:

• [July 28, 2024] The Indian Express | “The Broadcast Bill says much about the BJP’s opaque lawmaking”- Ruchi Gupta (link)
• [July 31, 2024] The Hindu | “A licence raj for digital content creators”- Apar Gupta (Link) 
• [July 31, 2024] [Video] The Probe | Broadcast Bill: Controversies and Criticisms Surrounding the Proposed Legislation (link)
• [August 03, 2024] The Wire | The Broadcasting Bill Broadly Casts the Citizen as a Subject – Rajshree Chandra (link)
• [August 06, 2024] The Wire | Losing Monopoly on the Narrative: Modi Govt Moves to Throttle Creators, Independent Journalism – Aakar Patel (link)
• [August 06, 2024] Medianama | Opposition Parties Ramp Up Broadcast Bill Criticism, Few Say They Have Not Seen The New Version – Kamya Pandey (link)
• [August 06, 2024] Big Brother is binge-watching: How proposed law may censor online content – Rohit Kumar (link)
• [August 08, 2024] The Wire | Overarching Definitions, Advisory Council’s Power: What Stakeholders Said on Draft Broadcasting Bill (link)
• SFLC’s letter to MIB and statement on the Broadcasting Bill, 2024 (link and link)
• [August 12, 2024] [Video] The Quint | Existential Crisis: New Laws for Digital Influencers Under Draft Broadcast Bill? (link)
• [August 12, 2024] Rest of World | India wants to make influencers register with the government – Yashraj Sharma (link)
• [August 13, 2024] The Quint | Broadcast Bill: Why Does Govt Want to Censor Influencers in the First Place? – Eshwar (link)
• [August 14, 2024] The Indian Express | Why the withdrawal of the draft Broadcast Bill raises more questions than it answers – Soumyarendra Barik (link)
• [August 16, 2024] The Indian Express | The limits of censorship: Understanding the withdrawal of draft Broadcasting Bill – Smith Mehta (link)
• [August 18, 2024] The Wire | Moving Away From a Written to Oral Tradition in News – Mrinal Pande (link)
• [August 10, 2024] Scroll | Why online content creators are protesting against the new broadcasting bill – Abhik Deb (link)
• [August 09, 2024] The Wire | Broadcasting Bill is an Effort to Censor Voices of the People Who Use Technology to Speak Truth to Power – John Brittas (link)
• [August 09, 2024] Medianama | Broadcast Bill another step in creating a Multi-Layered Legal System to Censor Content: Editor’s Guild of India President – Kamya Pandey (link)
• [August 09, 2024]  The Indian Express | Why has the draft Broadcast Services Bill 2024 raised concerns of freedom of speech? –  Soumyarendra Barik and Apurva Vishwanath (link)
• [August 08, 2024] Newslaundry | ‘No result through godi media, so govt wants to control YouTube’: Digital creators on broadcast bill – Tanishka Sodhi (link)
•  [August 04, 2024] [Video] The News Minute | Indian govt wants death of digital media: Akash Banerjee & Nikhil Pahwa on Broadcasting Bill (link)

3. IFF’s efforts: Our public advocacy efforts on the Bill, since the day it was released to the public, have been incessant. We kickstarted the #LetUsChill campaign (see the updated website here) prompting thousands of you to write to MIB urging them to ‘kill the bill’, which included launching this website. As the list of who can be regulated under the Bill keeps ominously expanding, we have been identifying affected communities and reaching out to them with advocacy strategies. We have been joining forces with content creators to aggressively push back against the revised Bill and the secrecies around it. We organised a social media storm on August 1, 2024 to increase awareness and pressure using the tags #KillTheBill #ContentBachao. In parallel, we continued our engagement with the Ministry through missives and RTI requests. In response to our RTI request seeking copies of responses received during the public consultation period (with personal information of responders redacted), MIB shared a limited set of responses in April 2024, albeit after some friction and resistance. A summary of some of the comments sent to MIB by stakeholders can be found here.

On July 29, 2024, we filed an RTI request seeking information on the private meetings convened by MIB on the revised draft, including the number, dates, an exhaustive list of participants, agendas, submissions, and outcome documents related to each meeting. We also asked MIB why the 2024 version has not been made public, and if there are plans to open it up for public consultation. On August 28, 2024, MIB responded to the RTI, in which they that the Bill is currently in the ‘drafting stage’ while referring to the 2023 Bill. MIB failed to acknowledge the 2024 versions despite reports about its secret circulation. MIB also shared a non-exhaustive list of stakeholders, namely IBDF, NBDA, IMAI, AIDCF, Tata Play, Bharati Airtel, Facebook/Meta, Google, Netflix, etc, with whom they met on June 14, June 21, and July 09, 2024. Past reports state that MIB held closed-door meetings on May 29, June 14, June 18, and July 9, 2024. Our requests for ‘minutes of the meeting’ and a physical inspection were denied as the Ministry claims to have not maintained the minutes/ documents. 

We also engaged with Members of Parliament and urged them to express their opposition against the Bill in all its forms. To this effect, we compiled a comprehensive explainer for MPs decoding the harms of the Bill and the threats such a regime will pose to Constitutional free speech. Given the wide-ranging consequences on fundamental rights due to the Bill, we recently published a cheat sheet on the onerous penalties under the Broadcasting Bill, 2023 for the benefit of stakeholders, primarily digital creators, to highlight the liability the Bill may impose on them and the impact on their livelihood.

Bidding goodbye(?) to the 2024 Bill

Amid severe pushback and criticism, MIB reportedly asked stakeholders to return physical copies of the 2024 Bill so they can “reconsider” certain provisions. Several of these privileged stakeholders reportedly received calls from MIB on August 12 asking them to return copies of the 2024 Bill, that was shared with them exclusively after several closed-door meetings. Reports also suggested that the 2024 Bill is being “withdrawn” and that the Ministry is asking for copies of the 2024 Bill “without any feedback”. On August 12, 2024, MIB, in a post on X, stated that a fresh draft of the Broadcasting Bill will be published after detailed consultations and the date for providing comments/suggestions on the draft Broadcasting Bill has been extended to October 15, 2024.

Interestingly, in response to questions about the ‘minutes of the meeting’ of closed-door meetings and request for a physical inspection in our RTI dated July 29, 2024, MIB has shared a screenshot of MIB’s post on X (formerly Twitter) dated August 12, 2024. We are not sure how the post by MIB on X answers our questions in the RTI (which also precedes the post). Additionally, to our RTI questions regarding making the *revised* version of the Bill publicly available and opening it to public input, the Ministry once again failed to acknowledge the 2024 Bill and shared that the consultation timeline for the 2023 Bill has been extended till October 15, 2024 (as also mentioned in the post on X but the clarity of the consultation being for the 2023 Bill only came through the RTI).

The Ministry’s private deliberation and action have left us in the dark yet again, with no insight into what the real reasons are for this step, what provisions, if at all, are being reconsidered by MIB, and if a new version will be released for public consultation. We wrote to them on August 17, seeking urgent clarity from the Ministry about the status of the 2024 Bill, details about the consultation supposedly to be held till October 15, its intention with the Broadcasting Bill in general and much more. While MIB chooses to continue with its secretive and elusive approach, we stand by our demand – MIB needs to #KillTheBill as merely reworking aspects of the Bill will not address the grave threats to the freedom of speech of digital creators, political commentators, users, and other key stakeholders. We have been watching and will continue to watch these developments closely.