In this petition filed on May 25, the company has argued in the court that the new IT rules of the Government of India will end user privacy and violate the right to privacy entitled in the Constitution
Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court against the Indian government. Under the new rules, social media platforms like WhatsApp will need to track the originator of the message being shared. If they do not accept the new IT rules of the government, their intermediary status will be snuffed out.
According to information received from sources, in this petition filed on May 25, the company has argued in the court that the new IT rules of the Government of India will end user privacy and violate the right to privacy entitled in the Constitution. The company claims that WhatsApp wants regulation only for those who misuse the platform.
A WhatsApp spokesperson said that WhatsApp messages are encrypted, so tracing people`s chats in this way is equivalent to keeping an eye on all the messages sent on WhatsApp, which will end the privacy of users.
This fundamentally weakens the right of the people to privacy. WhatsApp, along with civil society and experts across the world, has opposed such rules which violate the privacy of users. WhatsApp says that it will continue to negotiate with the Indian government for practical solutions, he added.
If Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter do not accept the new IT rules of the Government of India, then their intermediary status will be taken away. Also, the government can take criminal action against these companies for objectionable content posted on these platforms.
Google and Facebook said on Tuesday that they are trying to comply with the new IT rules. The government issued a notification of the new IT rules in February 2021. The social media intermediary was given three months to comply with the new rules and the deadline expired yesterday.
According to the new rule, any social media platform with more than 50 lakh users in India will have to appoint at least three officers to listen to and redress the grievances of the users. After the new rules are implemented, if any user has objections to any content posted on these social media platforms, then they will be able to complain about it.
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