Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud said BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has mixed up OTT and social media platforms trying to make it a political issue.
Hasan Mahmud made the remark on Monday at a seminar on OTT platforms at the Secretariat regarding BNP’s recent allegation of the government formulating what they calle two ‘repressive’ draft policies on digital and social media and OTT platforms.
The minister said “It’s shameful to see a former minister and the Secretary General of such a big political party make these kinds of mistakes. It’s not right to make this a political issue without having proper information.”
“The government is formulating a policy on Over The Top( OTT) platforms upon the demands of the involved authorities and necessity. OTT is not broadcast media, nor is it news or social media platform. It’s another platform of growing global entertainment media where cinema, drama and contents are released directly for audiences to watch with ease anytime from anyplace,” said Hasan Mahmud.
“We have seen many foreign OTT platforms invading our local market. The contents uploaded on these platforms don’t go with our values and cultures which have been criticized in different national dailies,” he added.
The minister said,”As everything needs to have a policy we created a draft one on OTT after talking with the stakeholders. It has been published on the ministry’s website and it will be finalized after receiving more opinion.”
Replying to a question Hasan Mahmud said, “The main aim of this policy is to ensure not publishing contents that clash with our value, culture on OTT misleading the young generation and protection of local OTT platforms from foreign invasion. No country allows foreign media to occupy their local market and for that India already has a policy for OTT platforms. Under the policy government’s approval is needed to upload anything on OTT media. Which, we don’t wish to follow.”
Source: United News of Bangladesh