Tag: New It Rules

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India on Friday released the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2022.

The affidavit added that Prakash is fully capable of performing the functions of Chief Compliance Officer and Resident Grievance Officer as per the new IT rules. And, it added that Shahin Komath has been appointed as Nodal Contact Person.

"No social media platform or any other intermediary can destroy our democracy," Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, told the Rajya Sabha.

WhatsApp last week accepted that "the government is the administrator" in its case and informed the Delhi High Court that it will put its privacy policy update "on hold" until the Data Protection Bill came into force.

The Chief Justice replied: "Have you examined the recent IT rules. It takes care of it".

The micro-blogging site had informed the Delhi High Court last week that it will take eight weeks to appoint a resident grievance officer in compliance with the new IT rules.

The minister has taken charge of the ministry at a time when the government and the US-headquartered micro-blogging platform Twitter seemed to be at loggerheads over the new norms, with the previous IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad publicly blaming Twitter of flouting norms.

Under the rules, media companies or their associations have to form self-regulatory bodies which would be headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court or High Courts or an eminent person.

When questioned about Twitter not complying with the new IT law, the Minister hinted that everyone has to follow new guidelines.

On the aspect of appointment of RGO under rule 4(1)(c), Twitter said it is in the process of making an offer of appointment to a resident of India as its "interim RGO" and expects to do so on or before July 11, 2021.

"We are not stopping you from taking action, court has not granted any protection to Twitter. If they are in violation, you know what to do," the high court told central government counsel.

The IT Rules, 2021 are the law of the land and Twitter is mandatorily required to comply with the same, said the affidavit filed in response to a plea by lawyer Amit Acharya, in which he claimed non-compliance of the Centre's new IT Rules by the microblogging platform.

The publishing of compliance reports by Google, Facebook and Instagram is bound to turn up the heat on Twitter, which has been engaged in a tussle with the Indian government over the new social media rules.

The agenda of the parliamentary panel meeting was to safeguard citizens' rights and prevent the misuse of social/online news media platforms.

Social media giant Facebook on Tuesday said it will publish an interim report on July 2 as mandated by the IT rules, and provide information on the number of content it removed proactively between May 15-June 15.