Amendment proposals for IT rules miss the main point

News: Recently, the Bombay and Madras high courts, ordered to stay the operation of the inter-ministerial appellate body that was to operate under the 2021 IT Rules. The body aims to monitor digital news publications and over-the-top (OTT) platforms.

The court observed that this oversight mechanism threatens media independence or “rob the media of its independence”. Now, the proposed amendment to the 2021 IT Rules to establish a body above social media platforms, which has a similar effect 

What are the proposed amendments to the IT Rules? 

A Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) will be set up. It will act as an oversight mechanism for grievance redressal officers, who were required to be appointed by social media platforms under the 2021 rules. 

The amendments also seek to impose additional obligations on social media platforms. They “shall cause” their users not to host, display, publish, etc. something they could not. However, so far, the platforms were only required to inform their users about the kind of content they could not publish etc. 

What are the issues associated with the proposed amendment?

The body will be able to decide what kind of speech stays up on the internet, what must be taken down, and what gets reinstated.  

The body will not have legislative backing as it will not be established by the statutory law of the Parliament. It will be established by the ministry through its own rules.  

In a democracy like India’s, the executive does not have the power to create bodies such as the GAC, which can impinge upon the citizens’ fundamental rights because there are little to no procedural safeguards built into the scheme of the rules. 

In addition to constitutionality issues, a GAC cannot operate at a very large scale in today’s information ecosystem. For example, A popular Indian social media platform reported that it received about 7mn user complaints in March 2022. Even if around 1% goes to the GAC, the panel may need to deal with at least tens of thousands of appeals per month.  

The mechanism works to act upon individual pieces of content. It will not solve the systemic issues. 

It raises the risk that if platforms fail to comply with the new obligation under the new directions, then the social media platforms may lose their intermediary protection under the IT Act. It ignores the jurisprudence on intermediary protections that have been recognized in the Supreme Court ruling, under the constitutional scheme of India. 

The amendment may lead to the loss of the social media platform’s intermediary protection if the platforms do not comply with the new obligation in the proposed amendment. It is extremely difficult to exercise complete control over the individual content.  

What should be done?

The present model which gives intermediary protection to platforms and asks the platforms to only respond to government orders or court directions for the removal of content is globally recognized. The SC of India has also upheld it in its Shreya Singhal judgement.  

The government must not only take the proposed amendments back but also repeal the 2021 IT Rules in their entirety and hold fresh consultations with civil society and other stakeholders with a view to put the people, not the government, first. 

Source: The post is based on the article “Amendment proposals for IT rules miss the main point” published in the Live Mint on 30th June 2022.