The Union government on Thursday told the Rajya Sabha that rules are being amended to ensure social media platforms are “more responsive and accountable” to Indian laws. This was in response to a question from Karnataka Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar had the ministry if the government was aware of the recent controversies about alleged bias and "infringement of Article 19" by some social media platforms, and what steps it is taking to ensure that platforms abide by Indian laws, and that “their algorithms and community guidelines are consistent with Indian laws and these are equitably applied to all Indian citizens.”
Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology Sanjay Dhotre, in his response, said social media and digital media platforms are intermediaries in the context of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and are required to follow “certain due diligence” as specified in the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 notified under section 79 of the IT Act.
“This includes publishing of terms and conditions of their platform and privacy policy. They are also expected to inform the users not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, update or share any information that is harmful, objectionable, and unlawful in any way. Also, section 79 of the Act provides that intermediaries are required to disable/remove unlawful content relatable to Article 19(2) of the Constitution, on being notified either through a court order or by appropriate government,” the response stated.
The response added that these rules are being amended to make social media platforms “more responsive and accountable to Indian laws”.
“These rules will also make digital media platforms adhere to the Code of Ethics,” the response stated.
This development comes as the Union government and Twitter spar after the government directed Twitter to ban accounts after the farm protests on January 26. Twitter has said it suspended over 500 accounts, and withheld several others within India while refusing to block accounts of "news media entities, journalists, activists and politicians" citing the need to uphold freedom of expression. Twitter had suspended multiple accounts after the Union government’s direction, but revoked it the same day.
The government on Wednesday expressed "strong displeasure" over Twitter's delay in taking prompt action against accounts and hashtags spreading misinformation and provocative content around the farmers' stir, and the IT Ministry said that the company must comply with the country's laws irrespective of the platform's own rules.