India tightens grip on social, digital media with sweeping new rules
Tech firms face challenge in their biggest market even as they come under scrutiny in other countries
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India's new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, unveiled by IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Feb 25, affect a broad swathe of companies, from messaging service WhatsApp to news publishers.
PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Rohini Mohan India Correspondent In Bangalore, Rohini Mohan
The Indian government has introduced sweeping new rules to regulate online content that could transform how the country uses the Internet.
On Feb 25, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad unveiled the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, as a "soft-touch oversight mechanism".
The rules affect a broad swathe of companies, from streaming platforms such as Netflix and messaging service WhatsApp to social media platform Twitter and The Times of India, the country's most circulated English-language newspaper.
Although they have been deliberated since 2018, the new rules come into force only weeks after Twitter did not fully comply with an Indian government order to block hundreds of accounts.
Even as Facebook and Twitter face scrutiny from Australia, the United States and countries in Europe, India's rules - especially on tracing messages to the original sender, taking down unlawful content quicker and addressing complaints in a fixed time - could pose major challenges for the tech firms in their biggest market globally.
The new regulations require social media firms, including messaging platforms, with more than five million users to set up grievance teams for redress in India and publish monthly compliance reports on complaints addressed.
The firms have to take down content within 36 hours of receiving a government or court order, and provide any information government agencies seek within 72 hours.
Under court or government orders, messaging platforms will have to also reveal the original source of any message. The new rules do say that such information can be sought for only serious offences, and that platforms will not have to disclose the content of messages.
The IT Ministry had, in fact, made the same demands on WhatsApp in 2018 to trace senders of inflammatory messages that led to a gruesome killing or be "liable to be treated as abetters and thereafter face consequent legal action".
But Facebook-owned WhatsApp, which has almost 500 million Indian users, rejected the request then, saying that "building traceability would undermine end-to-end encryption" and compromise user privacy safeguards.
India's new rules now leave the companies with no choice but to comply in three months, or risk penalties or criminal prosecution.
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What is required of companies
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BIG SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES TO:
• Establish teams for redress of grievances in India.
• Take down content within 36 hours on government or court orders.
• Respond within 72 hours to information requests from law enforcement.
MESSAGING PLATFORMS TO:
• Establish teams for redress of grievances in India.
• Help identify source of a message on government or court orders.
• Respond within 72 hours to information requests from law enforcement.
VIDEO STREAMING PLATFORMS TO:
• Comply with new certification system.
• Establish three-tier mechanism for redress of grievances.
• Respond to complaints within 15 days.
DIGITAL NEWS ORGANISATIONS TO:
• Establish three-tier mechanism for redress of grievances.
• Respond to complaints within 15 days.
• Adhere to Code of Ethics.
Rohini Mohan
The tech firms have issued carefully worded statements on how they are still studying the new regulations and working with the government on balancing user safety, transparency and online freedom.
The rules also include a new code of ethics for video streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+. These platforms will now have to adopt an age-appropriate classification system and must consider "India's multiracial and multi-religious context and exercise due caution".
Streaming platforms and digital news publishers will have to set up a three-level mechanism for redress of grievances: self-regulation by publishers, independent regulators and a government oversight authority. Publishers must respond within 15 days to complaints about their content.
A senior bureaucrat in the Ministry of Information has the authority to finally decide if any content should be blocked or modified. It is unclear how or if the rules will apply to individual bloggers and foreign news publishers such as the BBC, CNN or The Straits Times.
Digipub, the largest association of digital news publishers in the country, said in a letter to the government that the rules bypass legal procedures by allowing an executive body instead of the judiciary to block access to content.
The Times of India said the oversight authority set up with government officials could "both encourage strong-arming by the state and trolls mounting a deluge on a selected media target".
The Hindu, another prominent newspaper, said: "The government would like to see itself as a watchdog of digital content in the larger public interest, but it comes across as a predator."
On Friday, while hearing a petition about the alleged anti-Hindu content in an Amazon Prime series, a Supreme Court judge said the new rules "lacked teeth". The Indian government assured the court that it would draw up even more stringent laws.
