India tightens regulatory grip on Facebook, WhatsApp with new rules

 

By Sankalp Phartiyal and Aditya Kalra

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India announced new rules on Thursday to regulate content on social media, making Facebook, WhatsApp and others more accountable to legal requests for swift removal of posts and sharing details on the originators of messages.

The rules -- part of an effort by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's nationalist government to tighten the leash on Big Tech -- come after Twitter recently ignored government orders to drop content related to farmers' protests.

India is the largest market by users for both Facebook and its messenger service WhatsApp.

The new rules issued by the government, called the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, will be legally enforceable.

They will require big social media companies to set up a grievance redressal mechanism and within three months appoint new executives to coordinate with law enforcement.

Social media firms should be "more responsible and accountable," Ravi Shankar Prasad, the minister for information technology, told reporters in outlining the rules.

Big social media firms will be obliged to remove content within 36 hours of receiving a legal order, according to the rules.

The government also said companies need to assist in probes or other cyber security-related incidents within 72 hours of receiving a request. They must also disable within a day any post depicting an individual in a sexual act or conduct, said the rules, a draft copy of which was reported by Reuters on Wednesday.

IT minister Prasad also told reporters the rules would oblige the companies to reveal the originator of a message or post when legally ordered.

Facebook said it welcomed rules that prescribe ways to address challenges on the web. "The details of rules like these matter and we will carefully study the new rules," it said in a statement. Facebook-owned WhatsApp declined to comment.

A Twitter spokesman said the company would study the guidelines and looked forward to continued engagement with the Indian government.

"We believe that regulation is beneficial when it safeguards citizen's fundamental rights and reinforces online freedoms," he said in a statement.

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