Treating users as publishers unintentional, taking views on IT rules: Meity secy Krishnan

New Delhi: The government does not intend to treat influencers and independent content creators on social media platforms as publishers, and is openly considering opinions to tweak, clarify various clauses and even repeal a draft amendment to India’s social media intermediary rules, a top bureaucrat said at a press roundtable in the ministry of electronics and IT (Meity)’s office.

Through Tuesday, Meity secretary S Krishnan met stakeholders of India’s internet and social media industry, public policy and civil society advocates, and the media at Electronics Niketan, Meity’s home turf. The consensus at the end of the day, Krishnan said, is to extend the amendment’s public consultation timeline and take into account all views that the ministry received on Tuesday.

Multiple parties have voiced their concerns about how the amendment will work, he said. “Some parties have raised a view that there is no need for this amendment and it should be entirely done away with, while others have raised concerns around specific clauses of the amendment to be clarified.” Some stakeholders have asked for the public consultation phase to be extended by two weeks or more; a decision will be taken about this, he added.

Published on 30 March, the draft second amendment to Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021—popularly referred to as IT Rules—proposed that any clarification, advisory or notice issued by the government will need to be complied with.

Further, the amendment proposed bringing general users who independently create and post content on social media platforms under the same lens of scrutiny as news publishing houses, in terms of the ministry of information and broadcasting's ability to block such users publishing ‘news and current affairs’ content.

Addressing overreach

At the time, public policy consultants and civil rights advocates widely published criticisms of the amendment, claiming that the proposed regulation could drastically expand government overreach and threaten freedom of speech on public platforms.

Protests from various parties have surfaced at least twice over the past two years, with policy and free speech advocates underlining government overreach in each instance. In February 2024, a draft Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, 2024, faced widespread backlash due to a crackdown on freedom of information on public platforms. In October, Meity’s proposed draft AI rules also sparked criticism over how content is tagged and identified on social media platforms.

Addressing these concerns, Krishnan said that “there was no intention to treat publishers and non-publishers as the same…If there is a concern here, we will definitely address the same.”

The bureaucrat said the proposed amendment was brought forward to clarify compliance issues highlighted by social media intermediaries themselves.

“In many cases, when an intermediary is pulled up to be questioned for a piece of content, a lot of times the original users who have published and disseminated the content are missing. We’re trying to address these concerns, and the amendment does not make any change to the way content blocking orders in compliance with sections 69A and 79 of the IT Act are done,” Krishnan said.

He also added that making advisories compulsory for social media firms, which have so far been non-binding in nature, is also “clarificatory in nature.”

Industry resistance

“A lot of social media companies have underlined and highlighted issues wherein they are unsure if they are to abide by advisories that are issued in specific cases, or continue complying solely with the existing rules. The current advisory only seeks to clarify this, but we’re open to understanding views on how best to ensure compliance with all laws.”

Krishnan, however, did not state on record if there was a specific discussion with any prominent social media intermediary following which the amendment was brought forth. He also claimed that there are “no current discussions or intentions to divide or define specific kinds of content, apart from the current definitions of news and current affairs as stated by law.”

Industry stakeholders, meanwhile, continued to push back against the amendment. Meta and YouTube, which run India’s biggest social media intermediaries and were also present at Tuesday’s meetings, did not offer any statements on the current discussions.

“Modifications indicated at the meeting do not fundamentally alter the illegality or the censorial impact of the proposed changes. We grounded this position in the framework of the IT Act, 2000, and in the existing patterns of opaque censorship under the Rules that operate without any meaningful adherence to the principles of natural justice,” said Apar Gupta, founding director of public policy and civil advocacy firm, Internet Freedom Foundation.

Gupta was one of the parties in attendance in a meeting with Krishnan on Tuesday, and called for the amendment to be repealed.

Krishnan, however, claimed that the amendment was not contrary to the principles of natural justice, a point Gupta raised. For now, Meity is set to extend the consultation timeline for the amendment, which is due to expire on 14 April.