According to a draft proposal of the country’s IT regulations that was made public this week, the government of India will not allow social media platforms to host any information that it deems to be false.
This is the most recent of a slew of actions taken by the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that are being interpreted as efforts to restrain large tech companies.
The draft would prohibit any information deemed “fake or false” by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), any other government-authorized fact-checking agency, or “by its department in which such business is transacted.”
It added that social media platforms or other “online intermediaries” would have to “make reasonable efforts” to ensure that users do not “host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update, or share” such information once it was identified as such.
The government said in October that a panel would be set up to hear user complaints about social media companies’ content moderation decisions. Social media companies already have to hire internal grievance redressal officers and executives to work with law enforcement.
When various platforms have failed to comply with the government’s requests to remove certain content or accounts for allegedly spreading misinformation, the government has also been involved in disputes with those platforms on multiple occasions.
