Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary S. Krishnan met civil society and industry groups and later held a press briefing on April 8, saying the ministry may extend the current April 14 deadline for comments on the latest draft amendments to the IT Rules after stakeholders sought more time and raised concerns about the amendments’ impact, including on the digital advertising ecosystem, according to multiple media reports, including The Economic Times, LiveMint, The Print and The Hindu.
A key issue repeatedly raised at the meeting was the lack of clarity over the distinction between users, intermediaries, and publishers, The Print reported. Issues around user liability, scope of powers, and enforcement remained unresolved at the end of the consultations, it said.
According to ThePrint, along with officials from MeitY and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), the stakeholder meeting lasted about 50 minutes and was attended by:
- Companies attended: Meta, Snapchat, YouTube, Google, and ShareChat, among others.
- Industry bodies: US-India Strategic Partnership Forum, Indian Governance and Policy Project, and The Quantum Hub
- Civil society bodies: Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), among others.
“Civil society participation was sparse, with only three to four organizations in the room,” IFF told The Hindu.
The platforms’ representatives did not mention the surge in high-profile censorship of their users, two attendees at the stakeholder meeting told The Hindu.
What did MeitY say at the press briefing?
“Today with citizen journalism, this is a grey area,” Krishnan said while addressing the press conference after the stakeholder meeting. “People do comment, and I think this is something which, as a society we are grappling with. All of you, your own profession is grappling.” He also confirmed that user-generated content related to “news and current affairs” on social media will also now fall under MIB’s regulatory framework of code of ethics.
What drove MeitY to propose amendments to IT rules? Krishnan said, according to The Print report:
- Law enforcement agencies had asked for a data preservation provision.
- Intermediaries had asked for clarity on whether government advisories constitute binding guidelines.
- MIB had asked for jurisdiction over news and current affairs content, which it said was its responsibility and not MeitY’s.
One body to regulate all news: “In today’s world, there is a lot more news which is put out by users other than registered publishers. It was thought there should be one entity (MIB) which handles these,” Krishnan told reporters in New Delhi, as reported by The Economic Times.
“There was no intention to treat publishers and non-publishers as the same… If there is a concern here, we will definitely address the same,” Krishnan also said.
MeitY’s intent to pull up the user who posted the content:…
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