“Who began the mischief? You have to say,” Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters.
New Delhi:
The government’s new rules to regulate digital content requires social media giants to disclose “first originator” of a post that is found objectionable or offensive.
For any posts inimical to the country’s sovereignty, integrity, national security, public order or sexually explicit, social media sites have to disclose who started it.
“Who began the mischief? You have to say,” Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters while announcing the rules.
Social media platforms will also be required to have a provision for voluntary verification of users, Mr Prasad said.
They will have to appoint India-based compliance officers. If they remove content, they will be required to inform users, give reasons for taking down their post and hear them out.
The rules make traceability of the originator of messages a must on prominent social media sites, goes against end-to-end encryption on messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Signal.
“Significant social media” – defined by a larger user base – will be given three months to have a mechanism in place before the rules are applied on them.