NON-REGULATION AND NON-CENSORSHIP OF THE CONTENTS ON OTT PLATFORMS AND ITS IMPACT ON JUVENILES IN INDIA

ABSTRACT The OTT (Over-the-top) platforms in today’s generation has a big and strong fan base and web series has a separate fan base. There are many platforms available on the internet where youngsters can freely engage themselves such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Voot, MX Player, Hotstar, and so on. As these are mostly youth-based and very much addictive, people especially the juveniles are willing to compromise everything for the sake of watching their favourite web series. But as these contents are non-regulated and non-censored by any authority till now, watching violence, abusive behaviour, physical assault, drugs and sexual related contents are giving a negative message that they are normal and are accepted by society as whole and hence, these are influencing the young minds of the country to adapt the reel life into real life without the basic understanding of the legal consequences. The recent case studies revealed that how the crime rate in India is on rise among the juveniles especially against the heinous offences whose pattern are inspired by some or the other show/series. Hence, the goal of this research article is to highlight the cause-and-effect relationship between these non-regulated contents of the OTT platforms, in particular, have had on this young generation of India resulting into increase crime rate and violence among juveniles. The article suggests the appropriate measures which should be taken by the Government to address this menace through the robust regulation framework focused on the social media without violating their artistic freedom. Keywords- Over the Top platforms, social media, Non-Regulation, Censorship, Crime, Juveniles etc.