India will ostensibly regulate Facebook, Twitter; New rules underway

India plans to revise existing policies to regulate social media apps and online services on grounds of 'unimaginable disruption to democratic polity.' In its affidavit filed in Supreme Court, Ministry of Electronics and Information Techlogy (MeitY) is in favour of making online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and ors liable for content shared by ir users. New policies would go into effect by January 2020.

Revising 2011 policies, MeitY late last year proposed new regulations and identified all Internet-based services with more than 50 lakh registered users as intermediaries. Meaning, new rules proposed by centre will be applicable to any social media or user-generated content platform having more than 5 million users. se new rules will also impose ditional obligations on social media and online platforms to enable tracing out originator of content in question, within 72 hours of such requests me by any government ncy.

Ahaar-Facebook link

Social media giant Facebook has alrey filed a case in India, preventing government ncies from forcing WhatsApp to break its end-to-end encryption reveal source of messs exchanged on its instant messaging platform. WhatsApp has more than 400 million users in India. Linking of Ahaar and social media services like Facebook has also been suggested. central government has sought three months time to finalise new and revised social media rms to link Ahaar with social media accounts.

In September, apex court h asked Centre to file an affidavit stating timeframe within which it would formulate guidelines in this regard. Centre was also asked to inform court of existing steps in place to dress issues emanating from misuse of social media. se rules provide for a redressal mechanism for protection of reputation and dignity of individuals and users, said affidavit, ding that it also touches upon issue of purported drawbacks of emergence of use of social media and its misuse.

"If on one hand techlogy has led to ecomic growth and societal development, on or hand, re has been an exponential rise in hate speech, fake news, public order, anti-national activities, defamatory postings, and or unlawful activities using Internet/Social media platforms," affidavit stated.

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government would initiate more steps to ensure that intermediaries are me more liable and in pursuance of this, draft Information Techlogy Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment) Rules, 2018 was published, it submitted. top court was hearing a petition filed by Facebook for transfer of petitions pending in different High Courts across country, that demand to interlink of Ahaar database with social media profiles for auntication of identity, to top court.

(With ANI inputs)