As per the rules released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) on 25th February, 2021, significant social media intermediaries have to appoint a chief compliance officer, a nodal contact person who will coordinate with law enforcement agencies and a resident grievance officer. All three have to be residents of India. However, the ministry did not specify the minimum user base required for a platform to qualify as a significant social media intermediary. Homegrown social media platform Koo has met compliance requirements under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, ahead of the prescribed date of 25th May, the company said on Saturday. The new rules require OTT platforms to set up a robust three-tier grievance redressal mechanism. The first level will comprise regulation by the OTT Platform itself through a grievance officer. The second level will be an institutional self-regulatory body formed by publishers of content and their associations. This self-regulatory body will comprise industry experts headed by a retired Supreme Court/ High Court judge /eminent personality in the relevant field. At the third level is an inter-department committee constituted by the MIB that will provide oversight and hear appeals for decisions taken at level two or if a complaint is referred to the inter-department committee by MIB.
However, none of the top social media companies except Koo have reportedly adhered to the new rules. This raises a very serious question of whether these companies are not taking the government guidelines seriously or they are not willing to do it.
The new rules come into effect on May 26, 2021, and according to the sources, if the social media companies do not comply, they are liable to lose their status and protections as intermediaries and criminal action can also be taken as per existing laws of India.
The government sources said that these social media companies are coming up with several excuses like seeking more time, up to six months, for furnishing compliance whereas others have claimed that they are waiting for instruction from US headquarters.
The sad part is that these companies earn profits in India but they await orders from the US for any grievance redressal and Twitter is one such platform that keeps their own fact-checkers which are anonymous to the government. The country at present has the numbers standing at:
- WhatsApp users: 53 Crore
- YouTube users: 44.8 Crore
- Facebook users: 41 Crore
- Instagram users: 21 Crore
- Twitter users: 1.75 Crore
“Though they claim the protection of being an intermediary but they exercise their discretion to also modify and adjudicate upon the content through their own norms without any reference to Indian Constitution and laws,” sources said.
The rules include appointment of India-based compliance officials, giving their name and contact address in India, complaint resolution, monitoring of objectionable content, compliance report and removal of objectionable content.
Under the new laws, the oversight mechanism will include a committee with representatives from ministries of Defence, External Affairs, Home, I&B, Law, IT and Women and Child Development. It will have “suo motu powers” to call hearings on complaints of violation of the Code of Ethics if it wants.
The government will also designate an officer of the rank of a Joint Secretary or above as the “Authorised Officer” who can direct blocking of content. If an appellate body believes that the content violates the law, it is empowered to send the content to a government-controlled committee for blocking orders to be issued.
