Warn users against posting illegal content, govt tells social media platforms

Rajeev Chandrasekhar communicated this to the major social media companies, telecom companies and device manufacturers in meeting over the deep fakes issue

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) wants all social media platforms to develop an in-app mechanism to report violations of Rule 3(1)(b) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, and to inform users how uploading content that violates this rule can attract punishment under other Indian laws. It also wants platforms to assist in identifying and enabling the prosecution of content violations.

All social media platforms should develop anin-app mechanism to report violations as per Constitution, says IT ministry. (AP)

The minister of state for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar communicated this to the major social media companies, telecom companies and device manufacturers in a follow-up meeting over the deepfakes issue on Tuesday.

“Many platforms are responding to the decisions taken last month and advisories on ensuring 100% compliance will be issued in the next 2 days,” he tweeted after the meeting.

After the last meeting on November 24, Chandrasekhar said the ministry would appoint a nodal officer to look at platforms’ safe harbour status under Rule 7 who will also assist users to file FIRs. His presentation on Tuesday, however, said, “Rule 7/Section 79 adjudication rule to be played by GAC [grievance appellate committee]”. The IT Rules were amended in October 2022 to create three government-appointed GACs that would act as a tier of grievance redressal above the platforms’ own grievance officers. HT has seen a copy of this presentation.

Chandrasekhar wants the platforms’ community guidelines to map out how posting each of the eleven types of content described in rule 3(1)(b) would attract penalties and punishments under other laws such as the Indian Penal Code, Prevention of Money Laundering Act, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, Digital Personal Data Protection Act and Copyright Act, amongst others. He acknowledged that Koo had already done this mapping.

The ministry wants platforms to inform users of the legal actions they can take when the content they report is actually removed. In its presentation, the ministry listed “Platform to actively assist in identifying & enabling prosecution of the violation of 3(1)(b), 3(1)(d)” for discussion. This could involve filing FIRs against the person who uploaded the egregious content, or other remedies available under different laws.

Both Meta and YouTube argued against this. YouTube said that for certain kinds of content, such as child sexual abuse material, the decision to remove it is a no-brainer. To be sure, all platforms report CSAM to the US’s National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which then shares the data with relevant law enforcement agencies worldwide.

However, for other kinds of content, such as copyright violations, a legal mind needs to be applied and platforms cannot do that without endangering their safe harbour, the YouTube representative said. The representative also pointed out that if platforms help reporting users identify the users who posted the egregious content to pursue legal action, that would be a violation of the Puttaswamy judgment on the right to privacy.

The ministry took stock of which companies had submitted status reports on whether their community guidelines “aligned” with rule 3(1)(b) as per the discussion in the meeting on November 24. In its presentation, MeitY acknowledged that Telegram had submitted this status report while others were in the process of reviewing their guidelines. In its presentation, the ministry wrote, “The 3(1)(b) list and hyperlink to the community guidelines are NOT provided by most platforms in their annual reminder emails”.

Currently, when users report egregious content on social media platforms from within the app (using a “report post” or a “report video” option), it goes through automated content moderation for certain types of content and human moderation for others. If it is found to be violative of the platform’s policies, it can be labelled, de-amplified, or removed, or the posting user’s account can be blocked temporarily or permanently, depending on the nature and severity of the violation.

In case the reported content is found to be non-violative, the reporting user is informed, who may then choose to give more context or escalate it by approaching the grievance officer, whose appointment is mandated under the IT Rules. None of the platforms allow users to approach the grievance officer from within the app. Users must write emails to the grievance officers.

If users are still not satisfied with the grievance officer’s response, they can file a complaint with one of the three government-appointed grievance appellate committees. To be sure, the process to file a complaint with GAC is completely digitised and in the complaint, the user is required to specify which particular provision of the IT Rules has been violated. In this process, the user never interacts with the GAC through video conference instead, the entirety of the user’s representation is made in his/her initial complaint to the GAC.

MeitY wants all content reports, whether through the in-app reporting system or emails to the grievance officer, to be treated as grievances. This is because the GACs reject complaints that have not been dealt with by the grievance officer first. Both Chandrasekhar and Krishnan, it is understood, said that if a user’s report is rejected by the content moderation system, human or automated, it should automatically be directed to the grievance officer so that the user can directly approach the GAC. They do not want the user to have to go back and forth with the platform before even getting to the grievance officer.

Multiple companies, including Meta, Sharechat, YouTube and Jio, argued against this suggestion. They pointed out that the grievance officer and/or the GACs will be flooded with complaints, HT has learnt. They also pointed out that in many cases, the companies need additional context from the user to make an informed decision on whether some content violates their policy.

A telecom policy expert who attended the meeting informed MeitY that a similar process was implemented with telcos in 2009, and it flooded with complaints, multiple people aware of the meeting’s proceedings told HT. Finally, the consumers lost out in the process.

One of the participants HT spoke to said such a process would cause accelerated takedowns. It will also allow the reporting system to be abused where the platforms will be compelled to take down content that is falsely reported to avoid flooding the grievance officer and to avoid falling within the government’s crosshairs, this person said.

It is understood that a representative from Meta asked Chandrasekhar if this is how MeitY interpreted the IT Rules. Chandrasekhar said it could be made “unambiguous” for all by issuing amendments to the IT Rules, HT has learnt.