With Centre’s three months deadline ending Tuesday last for social media companies operating in India to comply with the government’s new IT rules for social media intermediaries, the tussle between the Centre and global IT giants Google, Twitter and Facebook that also owns Whatsapp have entered a new phase.
Google has already agreed though under protest to comply with the new rules while terming these as restrictive of free speech, others like Facebook too indicated to comply but WhatsApp that is owned by Facebook has approached the Delhi High Court, challenging the constitutionality of the new rules. These global giants are registered in the United States and hence mandatorily subjected to US law while they undermine the laws of other jurisdictions where they operate and earn billions of Dollars as revenue.
It is the sovereign right of India to pass legislation and issue rules for its compliance is unquestionable. Whether one is a small business or a global tech giant having millions of users on its platforms is immaterial as any business operating in India and deriving benefit from its Indian users must comply with its extant laws and regulations.
Actually, what troubles the global giants are the new provisions in Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 notified on Thursday prescribe an element of due diligence to be followed by the intermediary, failing which the protections and safe cover under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act would not be made available to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp from the content they carry.
Meanwhile, a day after WhatsApp moved the Delhi High Court against the Centre’s new IT rules, Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today has asserted that ordinary users of the app will not be affected by the new rules.
Minister took to Twitter today and announced that new IT rules have been brought in to establish the source of the message that led to the commissioning of specific crimes mentioned in the rules. He said that the government fully recognised and respected the right of privacy and that the ordinary users of WhatsApp have nothing to fear about the new IT rules. “Its entire objective is to find out who started the message that led to commissioning of specific crimes mentioned in the Rules,” he said.
The legal framework text may be complex for the people to understand, the issue in the simplest form provides for the obligation to reveal the first originator of an offensive message already in circulation.
According to him the obligation to reveal the first originator of an offensive message already in circulation ‘relates only to offences relating to sovereignty, integrity and security of India, public order, rape and child sexual abuse; that too when other less intrusive measures are not effective.’
These IT giants should not have any problem in accepting the new guidelines on the same principle as it had already fallen in line with European Union laws though with initial hiccups.
A reasonable via media would be to pay heed to the local law while they are free to continue the discussions with the government on their point of view in a non-confrontational manner to arrive at a workable solution. After all, these giants cannot afford to wind up their operations in India- a huge market!
