By : Satyaki Paul
On June 2, 2021 the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 came into effect. These rules were framed under section 87(2) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and in clampdown of the former Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, 2011. The rules were framed by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) in consonance with the opinions of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MoIB). Therein the part-II of the new rules are administered by MeITY and part-III relating to the Code of Ethics and procedure and safeguards in relation to social media and Over The Top (OTT) platforms are administered by MoIB.
The new rules have asked all social media and OTT platforms to set up a grievance’s redressal and compliance mechanism. The mechanism would include a resident grievance officer, chief compliance officer and a nodal contact person. The MeITY had also asked these platforms to submit monthly reports on complaints received from users and action which were taken against it. Furthermore, instant messaging applications were made mandatory to make tracking the first originator of the message. And, failure to comply with one of such above-mentioned points would take away the indemnity provided to such social media and Over The Top (OTT) platforms under section 79 of the IT Act (https://indiankanoon.org/doc/844026/).
In global context, most of the social media and OTT platforms officers are located in United States of America. In USA, they come under the ambit of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), 1996.This provides Internet companies a safe harbour from any content users posts of these platforms. Numerous economical experts believe it is this provision in the US law that enabled companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google to become global conglomerates. In similar vein, ofsection 79 of India’s IT Act, this Section 230 states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider”.This effectively means that the intermediary shall only be like a bookstore owner who cannot be held accountable for the books in the store unless there is a connection. The author works as a Ph.D. Research Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta, and the co-author of the book Anthropology For All (2021).