India announces new rules for social media companies

By Ahmad Adil

NEW DELHI (AA) – Announcing new rules for controlling online content, India on Thursday said social media platforms will have to disclose the original source of any "mischievous information" to the government.

Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad and Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar announced the new draft rules named Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, in a news conference in the capital New Delhi.

"The government welcomes criticism and right to dissent but it is very important for the users of social media to have a forum to raise their grievance against the misuse of social media," Prasad said at the conference, adding that the new rules would establish a "soft touch progressive institutional mechanism."

The rules will come into effect after an official notification is issued.

The new rules include a "voluntary user verification mechanism" for the social media users and removal of unlawful information upon receiving order from a court or authorities concerned.

Prasad said social media platforms when asked by court or authorities will be required to disclose the first originator of the "mischievous tweet or message."

"This should be only in relation to sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, public order, friendly relations with foreign States, or rape, sexually explicit material etc," he said, adding that the social media platforms must have a "voluntary user verification mechanism" for the users.

Javadekar said publishers of news on digital media would be required to appoint a grievance redressal officer, while OTT media platform would self-classify the content into five age-based categories.

Digital experts however say the new rules will impact the freedom of speech and privacy.

"For a user, the new rules mean that there will be an impact on privacy, free speech, and impact on the ability to view content streaming services," Nikhil Pahwa, a digital rights activist and founder of online news portal MediaNama, told Anadolu Agency.

He said rules ask for "proactive monitoring" and taking down content using artificial intelligence and other techniques and will lead to some amount of censorship on free speech.

The government demands that the originator of the message needs to be identified. Many people have shifted to different social media apps like Singal for privacy.

"I don't know if any companies like Singal will be able to comply with the new laws, because Signal cannot see the messages and doesn't collect the data, Whatsapp doesn't also do it," he opined.

"Will these apps be banned, I don't know, but they will not be able to comply with," he said.

Gurshabad Grover, a senior researcher associated with the South India-based Centre for Internet and Society, told Anadolu Agency that several parts of the rules can be subjected to legal challenges.

"With respect to the regulation of intermediaries, the new regulations are an improvement over the ministry's proposal in 2018. The new rules, however, are cause for worry about the privacy of an average Indian user. Several parts of the rules can be subjected to legal challenges," he said.

"The regulation of video-on-demand and digital news media is out of the scope of the IT Act, and is likely to be struck down," he added.