Twitter Instagram Facebook Ban in India: New Intermediary Guidelines

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If these social media stages fail to accept govt guidelines, they risk missing status as social media platforms and protections as intermediaries. Government can also bring action against them as per the land law for not understanding the rules.

Facebook has shown that it’ll comply with the IT rules but said it’s bound to people’s ability to freely and safely expose themselves. The three-month deadline provided by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MEITy) to take these guidelines ends today, i.e. May 25, but none of the titans have so far taken the new laws. The rules will be effective from tomorrow, notwithstanding these companies soliciting a total six-month delay in their implementation.

Homegrown social media platform Koo, the Indian version of Twitter, is the only platform that has affirmed the Centre’s intermediary guidelines. If any of these social media platforms neglect to get these guidelines, they risk losing social media platforms and protections as mediators. The government can also exercise action against them as per the land law for not following the rules, a government official stated.

Meanwhile, Facebook has shown that it’ll comply with the IT rules. “We aim to comply with the stipulations of the IT rules and continue to consider a few of the issues which need more engagement with the government. According to the IT rules, we are going to implement operational processes and increase efficiencies. Facebook continues to be committed to people’s strength to freely and safely express themselves on our platform,” an official spokesperson of the organization said in a report.

The new rules were published in February, which needs large social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to support additional due diligence, including appointing a chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and resident grievance officer. The job of a grievance officer would be an essential requirement from day one of rules coming into effect. Given the importance of a public interface for complaints and an acknowledgment system for offers, advise officials.

On February 25, the government had declared tighter regulations for social media firms, asking them to remove any content flagged by authorities within 36 hours and fixing up a robust complaint redressal tool with an officer being based in the nation. The government had established 50 lakh registered users as the threshold for determining ‘significant social media intermediary’, suggesting that prominent players like Twitter, Facebook and Google would have to comply with various norms. Announcing the guidelines in February, the new rules take effect immediately, while significant social media providers (based on several users) will get three months before they require to start complying.

Significant social media companies will also publish a monthly compliance report disclosing aspects of complaints received and action taken and details of contents excluded proactively. They will also be expected to have a physical contact location in India printed on its website or mobile app, or both. As per data quoted by the government, India has 53 crores WhatsApp users, 44.8 crore YouTube users, 41 crore Facebook subscribers, 21 crores Instagram clients, while 1.75 crore account handles are on microblogging platform Twitter. Koo has near to 60 lakh users, making it a primary social media intermediary under the new guidelines.


Google and Facebook said they are complying with the new rules, the deadline of implementing which ended on May 25. Amid speculations that social media floors like Facebook and Twitter will be banned in India for non-compliance to the Centre’s new guidelines under the Information Technology Act. It was notified on Tuesday’s February 25, the companies responded and said they were working on Tuesday on implementing the new rules.

The new rules were published on February 25, and the social media platforms were granted three months to implement them, which ended on May 25. There has been no augmentation of this deadline. According to the guidelines, if the businesses fail to comply with the rules, they fail their intermediary status and may face action.

As these social media titans are not headquartered in India, they will have to designate a chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and resident grievance officer. These platforms will have to eliminate any content flagged by the authorities within 36 hours. An officer based out in India will superintend a robust complaint redressal tool.

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