The Centre has announced this week that it plans to create an appeals panel with veto authority to overturn social media companies’ content moderation decisions, after withdrawing the draft revisions to the IT rules. If approved, it will be the first time in the world that a country establishes an appeals body of this nature.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology made the announcement in a press release, according to which, the government is now seeking public consultation and comments from all stakeholders for the next 30 days on the proposed draft for amendment “in Part-I and Part-II of the IT Rules, 2021”.
According to the proposal, the government intends to make changes to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Several High Courts have already suspended the guidelines, known as the IT Rules, 2021, after they were challenged as unconstitutional.
It is noteworthy that by user count, India is the largest market for YouTube and Facebook, as well as a key overseas region for Twitter. According to the current law, content moderation decisions made by social media behemoths like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter can only be challenged in court.
As per the proposed new accountability standards: “The goals of these rules are to ensure an Open, Safe & Trusted and Accountable Internet for all Indian Internet Users and Digital Nagriks. These rules have succeeded in creating a new sense of accountability amongst Intermediaries to their users, especially within Big Tech platforms.”
The proposed changes also include a 72-hour deadline for companies to respond to complaints if they fall under one of the government’s 10 types of violations, which include copyright infringements, defamatory content and false information.
The main concerns, however, are about the grievance redressal committee — a panel where users can challenge any decision made by social media companies regarding the removal of content or a user’s access to the service.
“Every order passed by the grievance appellate committee shall be complied by the concerned intermediary,” said the proposed rules.
Google, Twitter, Meta and many other companies have already fully or partially implemented the IT rules that went into effect last year. The laws also compel major social media platforms that offer encrypted messaging services to create a means to track out the sender of communications in unusual circumstances.
This condition has not been met by a number of companies, including Facebook’s WhatsApp and Signal. But last year, the government chastised Twitter for failing to ban several accounts and posts that the Centre considered offensive. The uproar erupted after the company’s top executive resigned to pursue a different position inside the company.
While providing a 30-day window for the committee to make a decision on the appeal, it was said in the recent release that it is proposed to create an appellate body called “‘Grievance Appellate Committee’ under rule 3(3) of the IT Rules 2021 by invoking section 79 of the IT Act having regard to additional guidelines as may be prescribed by the Central Government”.
“Users will have the option to appeal against the grievance redressal process of the intermediaries before this new appellate body. The Committee will endeavour to address the user’s appeal within a period of 30 days. This is made necessary because currently there is no appellate mechanism provided by intermediaries nor is there any credible self-regulatory mechanism in place,” the release added.
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