The new amendments to IT rule impose a legal obligation on social media companies to take all-out efforts to prevent barred content and misinformation, the government said on Saturday making it clear that platforms such as Twitter and Facebook operating in India will have to abide by local laws and constitutional rights of Indian users.
The new rules provide for setting up appellate committees which can overrule decisions of the big tech firms on takedown or blocking requests.
The hardening of stance against the big tech companies comes at a time when discontent has been brewing over alleged arbitrary acts of social media platforms on flagged content, or not responding fast enough to grievances.
Amid concerns over the rising clout of Big Tech globally, the CEO of electric car maker Tesla, Elon Musk, on Friday completed his $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,62,300 crore) takeover of Twitter, placing the world’s richest man at the helm of one of the most influential social media apps in the world. Incidentally, the microblogging platform has had multiple run-ins with the government in the past.
India’s tweaking of IT rules allows the formation of Centre-appointed panels, that will settle often-ignored user grievances against the content decision of social media companies, Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, adding that this was necessitated due to the “casual” and “tokenism” approach of digital platforms towards user complaints so far.
“That is not acceptable,” Chandrasekhar said at a media briefing explaining the amended rules.
