New Delhi: Amid concerns over Central government’s powers to snoop into computers, the Electronics and IT Ministry has come out with draft IT rules focussed on social media platforms.
Accordingly, the ministry published the draft rules for public consultation which mandate platforms to publish rules, regulation and privacy policy for users to access their services.
The rules laid out by the social media platforms advise the users against displaying or uploading any information which is “grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, libellous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling.”
Further, the rules also need to forbid users from posting content which “threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence or prevents investigation of any offence or is insulting any other nation”.
Any information which “threatens critical information infrastructure” should also be advised against by the social media platform, it said.
As per the draft guidelines, a platform which has more than fifty lakh users in India or is in the list of intermediaries of social media platforms specifically notified by the Centre should be incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 or the Companies Act, 2013 and have a permanent registered office in India.
They would also have to appoint a nodal person of contact and alternate senior designated functionary in India for round-the-clock coordination with law enforcement agencies and officers to ensure compliance to their orders or requisitions made in accordance with provisions of law or rules.
The IT norms further said that the intermediary should inform its users at least once every month, that in case of non-compliance with rules and regulations, user agreement and privacy policy the intermediary has the right to immediately terminate the usage rights of the users, the ministry said in its four-page draft rules.
The ministry said that it had prepared the draft rules to replace the rules notified in 2011.
The deadline for the submission of comments on the draft rules is January 15, 2019. (IANS)
