India’s health ministry issued a decree requiring online program streaming services to include health warnings in scenes involving actors smoking. The streaming service companies Disney, Netflix and Amazon complain that the result is an interference with freedom of speech and art, and that this would be impossible based on the number of multilingual programs they channel.
Health warnings about smoking are already mandatory in India on television and film broadcasts that contain smoking scenes, but India’s health ministry extended the requirement to online streaming services, prompting backlash from the Internet and Mobile Association of India and three major companies Netflix, Disney and Amazon.
The warnings required are static in each smoking scene in black lettering on a white frame and fifty second anti-smoking and health spots front and centre of each program that includes it in its scenes.
Live streaming services have three months to adapt the programs they stream with the required health warnings, which they argue is impossible given the number of programs available in different languages. It would require detailed and thorough processing of all content transmitted. It would be more effective to include the smoking warning as a label on each film’s rating, the three companies suggested, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India.
In a meeting held by the three major internet companies after the announcement of the Indian health ministry’s decree with India’s Viacom18 they decided that:
- Their industry falls under the purview of the ministry of information, telecommunications and IT instead of the ministry of health.
- Many programs may be cut in India and stopped from being shown by creators or distributors due to the extension of health warnings to online streaming from TV and cinema (as Woody Allen did in 2013 with the film Blue Jasmine which he withdrew from India when he was informed that his scenes overlapped with the warnings).
- Legal route can be taken and legal action can be taken against the Indian government by the online streaming providers.
- They will consult with lawyers and distribute a cluster of letters to the relevant agencies.
Director Dylan Mohan Gray stated that this is manipulation because issues such as war and murder along with violent crime are not regulated in the same way that smoking in film and television is called for. Speaking to Al Jazeera he added that “Smoking, which though certainly a serious public health problem, is both legal and a massive source of government revenue in this country”.
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 