New Delhi: The government’s goal of removing objectionable content from the web will not be achieved and might lead to censorship if the proposed changes to the IT laws are put in place, internet activists, law firms and public advocay groups have stated.
Putting forth their views at a consultation meeting called by the Ministry of Electronics and IT, various stakeholders said the new rules will also put undue regulatory burden both on the internet firms and users.
“…the plan to push social media platforms to proactively monitor and moderate content will be a violation of privacy and will lead to censorship of free speech by the platforms. This is unnecessary and disproportionate,” founder, Medianama, Nikhil Pahwa said.
However, government officials denied having any intention to impose censorship through the proposed amendments and invited suggestions to meet the goal of removing objectionable content from the internet and trace miscreants.
“This is not an effort to curb freedom of speech or censorship. If you…have a society where social media is liable to be misused by terrorists and bad elements, some amount of compromise to the extent of being able to trace the source of such messages, that is the effort in these guidelines,” Joint Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, Gopalakrishnan S said.
Stakeholders pointed out lacunae in the interpretation of ‘unlawful content’ in the draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, 2018. They also said the government’s proposal to include automated solutions may create a ruckus as technology is not highly developed to handle complications.
One of the participants said the proposed law will also apply to internet service providers (ISPs), that may lead to blocking of websites on the discretion of such firms.
Another participant said the proposed rules applicable to platforms with ‘more than fifty lakh users in India’ cannot be made part of intermediary guidelines as it will interfere with other applicable laws of the land and the IT Act does not have scope to introduce such provisions.
Gopalakrishnan asked all the stakeholders to provide their suggestions by 15 January.
“We will compile a draft of the all the comments and put it for counter-comments on 18 January. It will be open for public comment till 28 January,” he said.
| So far… |
| On 24 December, the IT Ministry released draft amendments under which social media and online platforms would need to trace originators of information when required by government agencies.
The amendments, which come ahead of the general polls this year, also said the platforms would have to ask users to refrain from hosting, uploading or sharing any content that is blasphemous, obscene, defamatory, “hateful or racially, ethnically objectionable”. |