Facebook Ban!!??

 

We Aim To Comply With Provisions Of The IT Rules, Says Facebook As Deadline Ends Today

Facebook has finally commented on the rules issued by the IT Ministry in February after which social media platforms were given 3 months to comply.

Facebook finally said to comply with the new guidelines issued by the IT Ministry and continue to discuss a few of the issues which need more engagement by the government.

The government's rules will come into effect from May 26th, which is three months after the new rules under Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021 were notified to the social media platforms.

A Facebook spokesperson was quoted by ANI as saying, "We aim to comply with the provisions of the IT rules and continue to discuss a few of the issues which need more engagement with the government. Pursuant to the IT rules, we are working to implement operational processes and improve efficiencies".

"Facebook remains committed to people’s ability to freely and safely express themselves on our platform," the spokesperson continued.

These social media platforms are likely to lose their protections as intermediaries a top official revealed on Monday to IANS.

"If social media companies do not obey the rules, they may lose their status and protections as intermediaries and may become liable for criminal action as per the existing laws of India," top official told IANS.

The rules include, a requirement to appoint a Chief Compliance Officer, a Nodal Contact Person and a Resident Grievance Officer in India who have to publicly post name and contact address and that the grievance officer must acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and dispose it of within 15 days and provide reasons to the complainant of any action/inaction.

Facebook finally revealed its decision today as most platforms have replied that they will await instructions from their company headquarters in the US.

What were the guidelines?

On February 25, the government had announced tighter regulations for social media firms, requiring them to remove any content flagged by authorities within 36 hours and setting up a robust complaint redressal mechanism with an officer being based in the country.

The government had set 50 lakh registered users as the threshold for defining ''significant social media intermediary'', meaning that large players like Twitter, Facebook and Google would have to comply with additional norms.

Announcing the guidelines in February, it had said the new rules take effect immediately, while significant social media providers (based on the number of users) will get three months before they need to start complying.

The three-month time period meant compliance by May 25.

Significant social media companies will also have to publish a monthly compliance report disclosing details of complaints received and action taken, as also details of contents removed proactively. They will also be required to have a physical contact address in India published on its website or mobile app, or both.

The new rules were introduced to make social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Instagram - which have seen a phenomenal surge in usage over the past few years in India - more accountable and responsible for the content hosted on their platform.

Social media companies will have to take down posts depicting nudity or morphed photos within 24 hours of receiving a complaint.

Notably, the rules require significant social media intermediaries - providing services primarily in the nature of messaging - to enable identification of the "first originator" of the information that undermines the sovereignty of India, security of the state, or public order.

The intermediary, however, will not be required to disclose the contents of any message. This could have major ramifications for players like Twitter and WhatsApp.

“Requiring messaging apps to “trace” chats is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp, which would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy," WhatsApp spokesperson said.

"We have consistently joined civil society and experts around the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users. In the meantime, we will also continue to engage with the Government of India on practical solutions aimed at keeping people safe, including responding to valid legal requests for the information available to us," added the spokesperson.

The rules also state that users who voluntarily want to verify their accounts should be given an appropriate mechanism to do so and be accorded a visible mark of verification.

Users will have to be provided with a prior intimation and explanation when a significant social media intermediary removes content on its own. In such cases, users have to be provided with an adequate and reasonable opportunity to dispute the action taken by the intermediary.

"We respect India’s legislative process and have a long history of responding to government requests to remove content where the content violates the local law or our product policies," Google spokesperson said responding to the implementation of intermediary guidelines.