Amazon Warns Indian Team Against Self-Censorship

The Amazon Prime Video team headquartered in US is not happy with the Indian team for their self-censorship.

Rachel Brosnahan in a scene from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

(Photo: AP)

Amazon Prime Video’s The Marvelous Mrs Maisel landed on the streaming platform in India with a few blurred out cigarettes, cigarette packs and also a scene where male genitals were blurred out. But the US team of the OTT platform is not happy with the Indian team for their self-censorship.

According to a Mid-Day report, the American team of Amazon has decided to allow the Indian team to censor and add disclaimers to only the platform's Indian original shows.

Our internal policy has been decided as per the guidelines of the government of India on what can and cannot be screened for an Indian audience. One may argue that the guidelines in India are restricted to what can be screened at public theatres, but Amazon India exercises its own discretion on what is suitable to be aired. Since the company has interests in the country that extend beyond OTT, it wants to play by the rules and not flout guidelines, since it might lead to hurting sentiments of people,

Source told Mid-Day

Prime has upcoming seasons of shows like Inside Edge, Breathe and Mirzapur, which where the Indian team will be given complete freedom to censor as per the Indian sensibilities. But the same shows will be aired worldwide without being censored, the source told Mid-day.

Producer Ritesh Sidhwani, who has produced Amazon Prime Video web series such as Inside Edge and Mirzapur, believes there should be no censorship on films and web series.

"I am not for censorship (on the web medium). We are rather fighting for censorship to go away even for movies. It is not existing for television. I think first they need to take steps as to what they are going to do for TV. If they are allowing self-censorship on TV medium for broadcast, then the same should apply (for digital platform),“ he had earlier said to PTI.

(With inputs from Mid day, PTI)