Government on Thursday notified final rules for Online gaming, appointing multiple self-regulatory organisations (SROs) of industry representative, educationist, child experts and psychologists.
To begin with, the government will notify three SROs. These SROs will be responsible for declaring online games permissible on the basis of whether games offer wagering.
“The Ministry (Ministry of Electronics and IT) may, by a notification in the Official Gazette, designate as many online gaming self-regulatory bodies as it may consider necessary for the purposes of verifying an online real money game as a permissible online real money game under these rules,” a gazette notification said.
Online games defined
The new rules define ‘online game’ as “a game that is offered on the Internet and is accessible by a user through a computer resource or an intermediary.”
“We are only regulating real money games that involve wagering. By process of exclusion, all other kinds of games will be permissible… government will notify SRO and it will be an independent body. We are starting with three SROs, and if there is need for more, we will go for it,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT told reporters here.
The SRO can declare online real money game as a permissible if it is satisfied that ‘the online real money game does not involve wagering on any outcome’. Apart from the SRO, MeitY has also notified a mandatory know your customer (KYC) verification of online gamers.
For safe internet
Chandrasekhar said that the new rules are designed to ensure that India’s Internet was ‘open and safe, trusted and accountable’, adding that while the online gaming presents an opportunity for start-ups, there has been an ambiguity around what was permissible, which the new rules would address to.
The notification also said that the online gaming self-regulatory body shall publish and maintain on its website, mobile based application or both, at all times, an updated list of all permissible online real money games… along with the details of such online games including the details of the applicant, the dates and period of validity of the verification, the reasons of such verification and the details of the suspension or revocation, if any, of verification of any online real money game.
Industry welcomes
Reacting to the notification, Trivikraman Thampy, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Games 24×7, said, “Many of the rules that will come into effect with this amendment including age verification, responsible gaming practices, etc are already being followed by us as part of the code of conduct of E-Gaming Federation. These rules will support this sunrise sector to become a significant contributor to India’s techade.”
Meanwhile, Chandrasekhar also said that MeitY will notify an organisation that will work as a ‘Fact Checker’ for content related to the government online and on intermediaries.
“Government has decided to notify an entity through MeitY and that organisation then would be the fact checker for all aspects of content online and on intermediaries that are related to the government… how do you square of the need to deal with misinformation versus the right to free speech?… the balance is, we create these fact checking organisations that may be wrong sometimes, may be right most of the times, that they will point out what is the misinformation,” he said.
He further said that then the intermediaries takes a decision to whether to go by the fact checkers say or they always have an option to say ‘I ignore this fact checker’.
He added that those who protests the fact that the fact checking is right versus those who protesting is wrong, then both can go a court of law.
Reacting to this, Mishi Choudhary at Software Freedom Law Center India (SFLC), told b usinessline, “Government should not be in the business of censorship especially when most misinformation can be traced back to political parties and their supporters. These Rules, are constantly being used to expand governmental powers and control online narrative in the name of checking misinformation especially before 2024 general elections. This should alarm all of us.”
