India’s punishing new social media rules could be a nightmare for the tech giants
In late February, India, the second-largest internet economy, released new regulation that is supposed to hold social media platforms “accountable against their misuse and abuse.” The new digital media rules aim to tighten the government’s grip over how social networks regulate their content. Along with the changes, the country’s ruling administration has also reportedly dispatched written warnings threatening to jail Facebook and Twitter’s India-based employees if they fail to comply. The message is clear: Follow the government’s orders or risk prosecution. In a punishing move, tech companies only have three months to update their platforms to comply. As the lines between political speech, hate speech, and misinformation blur, social media platforms have increasingly found themselves in a constant censorship battle with local authorities. Similar rules to India’s have been rolled out by many other countries before, like Germany, whose NetzDG law mandates removal of illegal content within 24 hours, and Australia, which penalizes social networks for not taking down abusive and violent posts in a timely manner. But India’s new law edges closer to the digital censorship of autocratic nations such as Russia and China, and could endanger the very foundation of free expression online. At its core, the new rules remove legal protections for tech companies over what their users post. If an “unlawful” piece of information—anything that’s prohibited under the country’s law— is reported by the local authorities, the new regulation requires that social networks act, else face the loss of immunity and potentially criminal prosecution. That might sound reasonable on the surface. Read More …