On Thursday, Union Law and Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, while laying down the new rules for social media and OTT platforms said that the government welcomes criticism and the right to dissent. However, the Centre is concerned over the rampant abuse of platform.
“Posts relating to offences related to the sovereignty of India, security, relations with other states and rape must be removed. If you disable content of a user you must give him reasons,” Ravi Shankar Prasad emphasised.
According to Central government’s data, at present there are 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook users, 21 crore Instagram users, 1.75 crore Twitter users and 44.8 crore YouTube users.
Ravi Shankar Prasad said that there is a need to counter fake news, financial frauds in India.
Social media guidelines
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that many organisations too have fact-check machines, which only indicates the strong presence of fake news in India.
Prasad said that social media is being used by criminal, terrorists to cause mayhem, chaos in India – while launching a ‘soft touch regulatory mechanism’
Posts regarding dignity of women will be ordered to be removed in 24 hours of receipt of complaints of contents that exposes the private areas of individuals, show such individuals in full or partial nudity or in sexual act or is in the nature of impersonation including morphed images etc. Such a complaint can be filed either by the individual or by any other person on his/her behalf, the new guidelines said.
An intermediary upon receiving actual knowledge in the form of an order by a court or being notified by the Appropriate Govt. or its agencies through authorized officer should not host or publish any information which is prohibited under any law in relation to the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, public order, friendly relations with foreign countries etc.
The government says while it is not interested in the content of the message, they wish to know who started the ‘mischief’. It wants social media platforms to disclose the first originator of the mischievous tweet or message as the case maybe.
Source: dnaindia.com