Netflix, Amazon and Disney-backed group protest downtown tobacco rules

An Indian group representing Netflix, Amazon and Disney has told the government its new tobacco warning rules are impossible for streaming giants to implement and will affect content creators’ freedom of expression, a letter seen by the media showed. Reuters.

As part of India’s anti-smoking campaign, the Health Ministry last month ordered broadcast platforms to insert static health warnings during smoking scenes within three months. Additionally, India wants at least 50 seconds of anti-tobacco disclaimers, including an audiovisual, at the beginning and in the middle of each programme.

The three companies, and billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s streaming platform JioCinema, were recently part of a private discussion to consider options for backtracking, including a legal challenge, as executives feared the rules would require editing millions of hours of content. Indian and Hollywood.

The amount of multilingual content on the platforms “is very high… there is a practical impossibility associated with including such warnings in the content,” the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) letter states.

IAMAI asked the Health Ministry to review the “onerous” rules, saying a survey had shown viewers were indifferent to depictions of smokers on streaming platforms, the letter said.

Netflix declined to comment, while IAMAI and the other companies did not immediately respond. The Ministry of Health did not respond either.

Beyond Hollywood content, streaming companies Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and JioCinema have become increasingly popular in India. Popular Hindi content starring Bollywood actors on such platforms has smoking scenes.

Activists welcomed India’s new rules, saying they would discourage smoking in a country where tobacco kills 1.3 million people each year.

The companies believe that content descriptors, which warn users with a “smoking” tag on a video along with its title at the beginning, were more effective, IAMAI said.

The “disruptions” caused by the warnings, the group said, were “problematic for creators who made significant investments.”

All smoking and drinking scenes in movies in Indian theaters and on TV are required by law to have health warnings, but there were no regulations for streaming giants until now.

In 2013, Woody Allen stopped his film, Blue Jasmine, from being shown in India after learning that mandatory smoking warnings would be inserted into its smoking scenes.

Sanjay Seth of the non-profit Sambandh Health Foundation said there should be no difference in how smoking is discouraged in cinema and on digital platforms.

“They need to implement this. It will save lives,” Seth said.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed: Reuters)