Content moderation: A fine balancing act

The government appears to be pushing through with a plan to amend rules for digital intermediaries to virtually give itself the final say on their content moderation decisions. The proposal entails forming a grievance redressal committee appointed by the government to hear appeals by users who disagree with the company taking down their posts or requests to take down someone else’s content. This will be binding. The latest version of these guidelines, Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2021, have been controversial and have been stayed by several high courts after citizens and digital companies challenged it as being unconstitutional.

The plans to amend it further indicate a resolve to double down in face of strong criticism, although it has been clear for some time that social media companies need to be regulated. At the heart of the concerns are two core issues: The prerogative the administration is assuming, and its impact on free speech. Even with the 2021 rules, experts pointed out that the additional compliances it defined went beyond the broad scope of the IT Act, the underlying Act of Parliament. On top of that are compliances that could lead to a chilling effect by encouraging companies to censor more heavily and create the space for such censorship since there is no clarity on the functioning of the proposed committee and how its members would be chosen. Past run-ins of the government with tech companies showed that content moderation is tricky, with neither side holding a default right to these decisions. For the government to do so, it needs to be through an Act of Parliament, in sync with constitutional principles.