Tech companies world over have been criticised for carrying pornographic, violent, fake content and other extreme content on social networking sites. The New Zealand mosque attack in March this year brought Facebook into the limelight for all the wrong reasons. The company claimed to have removed 1.5 million videos in the first 24 hours after the incident was live-streamed, but copies were shared on social media until several hours later. It all started last year when the Indian government kicked off public consultations on draft amendments to the rules regulating social media, spurring protests from social activists and opposition parties over alleged attempt at snooping on citizens.
Elections & Stricter Social Media Scrutiny
In April, when India was bracing for the 2019 elections, monitoring online content was the government's top-most priority. After a meeting with the Election Commission (EC), Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, Twitter, ShareChat and ByteDance agreed to a voluntary code, which became applicable from March 20. Content not adhering to the code were pulled down in the following months.
TikTok caught in a legal battle
Even as social media platforms tried to adhere to the code, scrutiny over online content was far from over. A legal battle awaited TikTok.
There were several reports in the local media about TikTok over accidental deaths when users made videos using knives and guns. The Madras High Court deemed the app unfit for children and banned it. In no time, it vanished from Google and Apple app stores, which proved to be a major setback for Bytedance's efforts to tap users in a key market. This heightened industry worries that technology companies could now face increased scrutiny and regulatory challenges in one of their most important markets. Netflix had also been dragged into a legal battle last year following a complaint that one of its fictional series insulted a former Indian prime minister.
Complying with the rules
ShareChat reported removing nearly half a million pieces of content and removed 54,400 accounts in a month's time for spreading fake news, hate speech, spam and misinformation. Facebook claimed it was removing 1 million accounts on a daily basis. In June, YouTube updated its hate speech policy as it faced backlash over inaction on addressing hateful and borderline harmful content on its platform.
Govt vs WhatsApp on traceability of content
Legal experts argued that any government regulation must focus on removing illegal content as against banning apps completely. Soon, the ban on TikTok was lifted.
The Indian government restarted the conversation with WhatsApp around digitally fingerprinting every message sent on its platform without breaking its encryption, to ensure traceability of all shared content. It had been quite insistent in its demand after misinformation and rumours around child kidnappings on the platform had led to a spate of lynchings across India in 2018. The issue remains unresolved as of now.
Absence of a Data Protection Law
As the country debated the contours of the draft bill and awaited clarity on amendments to intermediary guidelines for technology platforms, those concerned about the potentially harmful effects of certain content streamed on these apps turned to the courts for redress. For instance, TikTok served ShareChat notices forcing it to take down videos citing exclusive rights over this content.
New debate on 'intermediary' status
An intermediary by definition is not supposed to own any content and that is why they are protected from the liability of the content appearing on the platform. TikTok had used this status to argue against its ban in Madras High Court in April for allegedly hosting content dangerous for children. But its notices to ShareChat proved otherwise.
Current Status
ET reported in August that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is likely to exclude ecommerce data in the proposed Data Protection Bill. The issues related to public data are likely to be dealt with through a separate process once the government has established what constitutes personal data. Also, it is considering dropping a contentious clause from the draft intermediary guidelines that required companies to develop automated tools to ‘actively’ monitor content on Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and other platforms.
The final intermediary guidelines are expected to be announced after the SC judgment on the traceability issue and on linking of Aadhar to social media accounts, due for next hearing on September 13.