News and current affairs content posted online by individual users will now fall under the same framework as publishers, allowing for deletion, modification and even blocking in emergency situations.
Social media platforms will now have to adhere to guidelines or advisories issued by the Ministry of Information Technology (MeitY), or risk legal action.
Both are changes to the IT Rules 2021, proposed by the ministry, with a draft put out for public consultation on Monday. Comments can be submitted until April 14.
The first change also significantly expands the banning powers of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), including through the Joint Disciplinary Committee or IDC which hears the cases. The proposed additional change is to how the IDC operates, allowing it to address “matters” rather than “complaints,” thus enabling it to have its say on a broad and unspecified range of issues, not just formal grievances.
“News on social media is largely unregulated, and this is the response we received from the MIB. That is why these amendments were proposed,” said an IT Ministry official who requested anonymity. “If a regular user shared content from a news publisher, that would also fall within the scope of these rules. That’s the broader idea.”
“These draft amendments represent a subtle but significant expansion of the MIB’s powers. It expands Rule 14, which covers the IDC’s powers, to individual users posting news and current affairs content, effectively expanding the MIB’s remit in the user-generated content ecosystem. The changes also expand the IDC’s role. It is no longer limited to dealing with escalated grievances and can now examine ‘any matter’ referred to it by the MIB, giving the executive greater discretion to initiate,” Pallavi said. Sundi, Senior Associate at Ikigai Law: “Content proofreading.”
The above-mentioned official also said that the blocking powers under Section 69A of the IT Act, currently exercised by the IT Ministry, could be extended to the MIB. It is understood that similar powers could also be considered for the Ministries of Interior, Defense and Foreign Affairs. This proposal is under discussion, and the relevant ministries have not yet submitted their comments.
The draft amendments come amid a wave of takedowns on platforms such as X, Facebook and Instagram under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. In response to concerns that much of this content is satirical or critical of the government, another IT Ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the takedowns largely involved deepfakes.
“Due to any changes that occurred in the world of artificial intelligence, a huge amount of deepfakes started appearing on social media. The platforms themselves have greatly intensified their efforts, with takedowns almost doubling or tripling to remove deepfakes,” the official said.
This is the second amendment to the IT rules this year. In February, MeitY introduced changes to tighten takedown timelines from 36/24 hours to 3/2 hours, and expand due diligence requirements for intermediaries, particularly regarding artificially generated information or AI-generated content.
Another big change brought by the draft rules concerns the intermediary aspect. The draft introduces a new clause that requires platforms to adhere to any “clarification, consultation, order, direction, standard operating procedure, code of practice or guidance” issued by MeitY. This compliance is now linked to due diligence under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, which governs safe harbour. This means that advice previously seen as guidelines may now be treated as binding, and ignoring it could expose platforms to legal risks.
“The advice issued by MeitY largely falls within IT rules,” said the first official quoted above. “Platforms should at least compile such advice in their compliance reports. But we found that companies were not taking the advice seriously.”
“We saw this even in the Grok case. In particular, consultations regarding content harmful to women and children were treated as routine paperwork. “That’s why we now want to make the consultations actionable as well,” the official added, referring to MeitY’s tussle with X’s Grok chatbot in early January, where MeitY demanded immediate action by
Raising concerns about the lack of safeguards, Meghna Pal, director of technology policy think tank Esya Centre, said there were “no controls except judicial recourse” and that the aim of the changes appeared to be “rushed implementation rather than measured and measured governance”.
Under the draft amendments to data retention requirements, the government has introduced new wording in the existing provisions to make it clear that platforms must retain data for a minimum of 180 days, regardless of what may be written in any other law, the senior official explained.. The clause also provides, as before, that data may be retained for a longer period if required by any law or other authority.
