Nodal officer to look at social media site’s safe harbour status, says MoS
The meeting was held to strengthen the due diligence requirements for intermediaries prescribed under the IT Rules
The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) will appoint a nodal officer to look at platforms’ safe harbour status, the minister of state for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced on Friday. He also said that the IT ministry would assist aggrieved users of social media platforms in filing FIRs if the need arose. Chandrasekhar announced this after holding a meeting with social media companies, device manufacturers and telecom service providers in the morning.
“A Rule 7 officer has been nominated and the process to invoke Rule 7 will be done whenever platforms are non-compliant with the rules. And that will open up for those who are aggrieved by this [and can] file FIRs and MeitY will assist with a platform that will help the users very easily notify MeitY about violations of Rule 3.1.b. MeitY will design a mechanism to help with FIR filing in a smooth manner,” he said.
According to Rule 7 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, if an intermediary does not follow the rules, it shall lose its safe harbour and be liable for punishment under the IT Act and the Indian Penal Code.
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Under Rule 3(1)(b) of the IT Rules, all intermediaries are required to make “reasonable efforts” to prevent the existence of 11 kinds of content on their platforms, content that Chandrasekhar calls “unlawful content”. These include content harmful to children, malware, intellectual property rights violating content, content that impersonates another person, and content that “intentionally communicates any misinformation or information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature” among other things.
The meeting was held to strengthen the due diligence requirements for intermediaries prescribed under the IT Rules.
The intermediaries have been instructed to submit details of their terms and conditions, and terms of use to the IT Ministry in the next seven days after making sure that these documents are aligned with the IT Rules. They must also inform the ministry how they will regularly remind users of what is “unlawful” content under the rules in simple, illustrative language.
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To be sure, the terms and conditions of all social media platforms are publicly available. It is understood that after the intermediaries submit their policies, the IT ministry’s legal division will assess if they are in compliance with the IT Rules.
“There is a slight departure in the way MeitY will handle this [unlawful content]. In the past, we were not necessarily going for 100% response to 100% of the violations of Rule 3 [of IT Rules]. From today onwards, they will be at absolutely 100% compliance, zero tolerance to any violation by any platform or user of any of the 11 no go areas of content,” Chandrasekhar said.
The meeting was attended by representatives from Meta, Google, Twitter, Snap, Sharechat, Koo, Telegram, telcos Airtel and Jio, device manufacturers Apple and Samsung and industry body NASSCOM.
HT learns that the minister told the platforms that they had had enough time to comply with the IT Rules and that if they did not demonstrate compliance immediately, people could start filing FIRs against them and they could not claim safe harbour. .
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One of the slides of the presentation Chandrasekhar delivered in the meeting read, “a) Intermediary can seek revocation of Rule 7 and reinstatement of its Safe Harbour by providing originator information; or b) aggrieved party / MeitY can file FIR”.
Only courts can determine if an intermediary can lose its safe harbour. This determination is made if there is a cause of action, such as in the form of an FIR. Loss of safe harbour means that a platform can be held liable for content that users post on its platform. Functionally, it means that the intermediary cannot use safe harbour as a legal defence. Even when a platform loses its safe harbour, it loses it for a particular piece of content, not for all third party content.
It is understood that during the meeting, Chandrasekhar told the intermediaries that while the extant laws are enough to deal with the issue of deepfakes, the government does not want to foreclose the possibility of a new regulation, if the need arises.
“In the tech space, there’s always space for new regulations and a new law. … There is no denying that today if anybody argues for a new regulation or new law, that is a no brainer because the [IT] Act is 22 years old. However, that is not to distract from the fact that there is a current framework, there is a current law and there are current compliance and legal obligations of platform. These are not binaries. This is not mutually exclusive. We are asking for compliance with the law as of today, we are saying we will seek to enforce the law in its complete entirety. And yes, a parallel conversation about new laws, new regulations, new tech, all of that can continue to happen. These are not in any way contradictory,” he said in response to HT’s question.
This meeting follows the intermediaries’ meeting with IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday. After the meeting, Vaishnaw announced that the government will bring in a new regulation to deal with deepfakes and so-called synthetic content online . On Thursday, there was no discussion with the intermediaries about what the regulation could look like, HT had reported earlier.
One person aware of the proceedings described Friday’s meeting as an examination of how to strengthen the due diligence mechanisms prescribed under the Indian law while the Thursday meeting focussed on what the intermediaries should do if deepfakes and misinformation appear online despite best efforts.
‘Remind users of what is unlawful’
The meeting also focussed on the need for platforms to regularly remind users of what is unlawful content in simple, accessible language. In the press conference, Chandrasekhar said, “If the user doesn’t know, it should be lawful and now unlawful, what is unlawful? Every user is not a lawyer. Therefore, put it in simple English that deepfakes are prohibited on this platform, CSAM )child sexual abuse material) is prohibited on this platform. Copyright violating music is prohibited on this platform.”
It is understood that he raised the same issue during the meeting as well. A representative from Meta pointed out that displaying such notices every time a user signs in will have limited utility since most people remain logged in.
Under the IT Rules, all intermediaries are obligated to remind their users, at least once a year, of its rules and regulations, privacy policy, or user agreement, and changes to them. This notification must also specify that in case of non-compliance with the platform’s policies, the platform can delete user’s account and/or the problematic content. Another Meta representative raised this rule during the meeting, HT has learnt.
During the meeting, Chandrasekhar expressed his displeasure with X, formerly Twitter, for not taking down the deepfake of actor Rashmika Manndana quickly. It is understood that the Twitter representative said that the context of the tweet mattered. Chandrasekhar asked him if he would try to contextualise misinformation in court as well.
A representative from Meta told the government during the meeting that it had been more proactive in taking down deepfakes since the government’s “last advisory”. It is not clear if this last advisory is a reference to the February advisory that MeitY send or the November 7 letter reiterating the MeitY advisory that was sent.
It is understood that Chandrasekhar also reprimanded Telegram for not dealing with child sexual abuse material (CSAM) effectively.
The telcos and the device manufacturers did not have much to add. The Samsung representative just said that they are happy to work with the government as and when required.
During the meeting, it is understood that Chandrasekhar also told the intermediaries that MeitY has spoken to RBI about loan apps. “I said that for even that we are issuing an advisory on loan apps and, and betting apps, and deep fakes the whole intersection of these three things,” he told the press. He told the intermediaries that they should not advertise loan apps and betting apps that are “not kosher”.