New Delhi: More than 85 per cent of social media and internet intermediaries feel that the stringent compliance order in the new IT Rules 2021 will negatively impact ease of doing business in India, showed a new report on Monday. From promoter traceability to having a limit of 5 million users to be designated as an important social media intermediary in India, industry stakeholders surveyed during the report have identified several parts of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Code of Conduct) rules. expressed concern. , 2021, was introduced by the IT ministry in February last year.
(Also read: Twitter banned over 46,000 bad accounts in India in May 2022)
The report titled ‘IT Rules, 2021: A Regulatory Impact Assessment Study’ by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and The Dialogue, enables a progressive arbitral liability regime, establishing procedural safeguards to assist law enforcement agencies and move forward a uniform and transparent content barrier regime.
On the material removal timeline, Rajya Sabha MP Dr Amar Patnaik said during a panel discussion that “the removal should be classified, cannot compare different forms of damage and put them in the same (regulatory) basket”. .
In the latest draft, the IT Ministry had reiterated that the Resident Grievance Officer of a social media intermediary shall, within 24 hours, accept any complaint relating to removal of user’s content, suspension, blocking and deletion of user’s account, redressal . Resolve the problem within 72 hours and get it resolved within 15 days.
Industry stakeholders surveyed during the study expressed concerns over the feasibility of mandated originator traceability in IT Rules 2021, the multiple effects imposing personal liability on Chief Compliance Officers, and the impact of due diligence requirements on entry barriers and ease of doing But it will. Business.
Most intermediaries and cyber security experts said that it was technically impossible to introduce traceability on an end-to-end encrypted platform without breaking the encryption technology. “Most of the intermediaries noted that in a country like India with a population of 1.3 billion, setting a limit of 5 million users as an important social media intermediary is quite difficult from an economic point of view,” the report said.
While the government published the FAQ last year, which was a step in the right direction, a detailed standard operating procedure should be published by the government, explaining the criteria for calculating the limit and any The arbitrator should guide the executive’s power to comply with the addition. Due diligence mandate, stressed on the report.
According to the findings, “Most intermediaries dealing with large amounts of user-generated content noted that there is a need to grading takedown orders according to the degree of damage to enable sufficient time to assess the genuineness of the requests.” (Also read: Center gives ‘one last chance’ to Twitter to comply with new IT rules)
The draft, republished by the IT ministry, also revealed plans to create an appeals panel that could reverse content moderation decisions by big tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
In the draft republished IT Rules 2021, the Ministry of IT (MeitY) said the new amendment “will not affect Indian companies or startups in the early stage or development stage”. This has brought relief to domestic platforms like Dailyhunt, ShareChat and Ku. The IT ministry has sought public opinion on the draft proposal within a time-frame of 30 days. The IT regulations also require large social media platforms to help the government trace the origin of messages in special cases.
“The arbitrator shall respect the rights granted to the citizens under the Constitution,” read the draft.