Published on Oct 08, 2021
Facebook Instagram Twitter Banned in India : In a major change for internet laws that may undermine privacy, the deadline for significant social media intermediaries to comply with a host of obligations laid down by the government three months ago, ends today, May 25.
According to the internet freedom foundation (IFF), obligations were laid down for significant social media intermediaries under the Intermediaries and Digital Media rules to comply with. The deadline to complete such compliance was 3 months from the date of notification of rules i.e March 25.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) issued the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, on February 25, 2021. The IFF has called these rules unconstitutional, undemocratic and alleged that they negatively change the way we use the internet in India.
So far there has been high controversy on the rules with at least six writ petitions being filed before three different high courts of India, challenging these rules. IFF claims to have provided legal assistance to Livelaw Media private limited in its challenging before the high court of Kerala. The Hon’ble single judge of the Kerala High Court was pleased to provide protection to LiveLaw Media against coercive action from MIB and MeitY in respect of the Intermediaries Rules.
The social media platforms that users use are called social media intermediaries. Those that have more than 50 lakh registered users have been designated as ‘significant social media intermediaries’.
On February 25, the government had announced tighter regulations for social media firms, requiring them to remove any content flagged by authorities within 36 hours and setting up a robust complaint redressal mechanism with an officer being based in the country.
The government had set 50 lakh registered users as the threshold for defining ''significant social media intermediary'', meaning that large players like Twitter, Facebook and Google would have to comply with additional norms.
Announcing the guidelines in February, it had said the new rules take effect immediately, while significant social media providers (based on the number of users) will get three months before they need to start complying.
The timelines for takedowns have been reduced and social media platforms are bound to assist government agencies.
Previously in the 2011 rules, the grievance officer was responsible for receiving complaints from users concerning the rules and redressing them within a month. Now the grievance officer is responsible for acknowledging complaints within 24 hours and resolving them within a reduced timeline of 15 days.
On 25th February 2021, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had introduced new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules for social media platforms with more than 50 lakh registered users. The rules stated that:
1. Social media platforms must appoint a chief compliance officer who will ensure compliance with the new Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Intermediaries Rules,
2. A grievance redressal officer, who will look into complaints and acknowledge them within 24 hours and provide adequate redressal within 15 days.
3. A nodal contact person who will coordinate round-the-clock with law enforcement agencies.
4. The aforementioned three officers must be residents of India.
5. The platforms must share information with the government about the social media user who first posted a particular message shared on their platform, if required by the government
6. The social media platforms must remove objectionable content from their platforms within 36 hours, if so asked by the government.
7. There are more guidelines relating to removing nudity, sexual content, religiously/politically sensitive or communal content, if the platforms receive complaints from authorities regarding said content.
However, we don’t think the Government of India will go so far as to ban Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Instead, it may invoke provisions in Section 79 of the IT Act to take away the privileges enjoyed by these platforms that says the social media intermediaries (social media platforms) shall not be liable for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by them. As a consequence, the GOI may initiate criminal proceedings against the companies for any objectionable content posted on their platforms.
But no, even though the GOI banned TikTok, we don’t think it will ban Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. Not yet; not tomorrow.
