Govt announces rules to curb social media misuse

FB, Google, Twitter need to remove content within 36 hours of order

The government on Thursday announced new information technology rules to curb the misuse of social media platforms.

It mandated firms to appoint a grievance officer and disclose the first originator of the mischievous information and remove it within 36 hours. The rules said content depicting nudity or morphed pictures of women needed to be removed within 24 hours.

The rules notified by the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, will affect players such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and will include OTT (over the top) platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ Hotstar.

The rules make a distinction between social media intermediaries and significant social media intermediaries that have a large number of users. The government will notify the threshold of the user base that will distinguish between the two.

“We have always been clear as a company that we welcome regulations that set guidelines for addressing today’s toughest challenges on the Internet. Facebook is committed to people’s ability to freely and safely express themselves on our platforms. The details of rules like these matter and we will study them,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

Twitter and Google declined to comment.

The rules related to social media will be administered by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, while those for OTTS and digital media by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

Originator of content and compliance officers

While industry and experts largely welcomed the aim to regulate social media and big tech firms, among the most contentious provisions in the rules is the one of identifying the originator of problematic content.

Significant social media intermediaries providing services, primarily messaging services, will have to enable identifying the first originator of problematic content that may harm the country’s interests and several other provisions described in the rules. The social media intermediary will have to do this in response to a judicial order passed by a court or by a competent authority under Section 69 of the IT Act.