Online gaming services and advertisements to now come under the I&B Ministry
The ministry will now get the power to regulate the policies regarding online gaming services and online advertisements
The central government has issued an order stating that online content providers including online gaming services and online advertisements will now come under the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry, which means that the ministry will now have the power to regulate policies regarding these activities.
A gazette notification issued by President Draupadi Murmu stated that ‘films and Audio-Visual programmes/content made available by online content providers/publishers would be brought under the heading “Ministry of Information and Broadcasting” in the Second Schedule of Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961.
“This will lead to coverage of online gaming content and online advertising. This covers all online advertising. We can amend the Information Technology Rules now,” an official said
Prior to this move, the policies regarding to these content providers were regulated by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Back in April, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) made amendments to the IT Rules, 2021 to regulate ‘online real money games’ where users had to use and risk real money to play these games. During this time, the I&B Ministry had also released an advisory warning online platforms against the promotion of betting and gambling websites and apps and against showing advertisements for the same.
However, the first move to regulate social media was undertaken back in 2018 by then I&B Minister, Smriti Irani, who proposed the first measures to oversee the digital content providers amidst the growing influence of the online platforms and the need to safeguard users from harmful or exploitative content.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had in the past taken strong objections to the instances of mainstream English and Hindi newspapers carrying advertisements and promotional content of betting and gambling websites.
