From Tomorrow: Will India ban our Favorite Social Media Networks?

After seeing the title you are getting confused about what social media platforms (like Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp) are banned then what about my pages on that platform. Wait! Read the title again. I’ll write it in the future tense. This means it not yet done but it’s possible or maybe done tomorrow.



Ok, I think now you’re all angry with this confused way of talking. Sorry! I’ll clear the things one by one. First, did you know that all the media around us eagerly talk about the social media regulation issues in India? On February 25, 2021, our Indian Supreme Court would announce some rule and regulation policies for social media platforms and ordered to implements these rules within three months period of time otherwise they will face the appropriate actions taken by the court.

But why the court will announce this regulation so suddenly? In this Covid – 19 pandemic situations, most of the people in the world are mostly dependent on these social media for their entertainment and other purposes. But sometimes some of the user starts to spread the fake news on this platform that affects many of the users. These types of problems are not only happened this time but also always cause many problems for both users and the platform. So to regularize this problem our supreme court will suggest some rules for social media platforms. Not only for this one but also for online privacy, impersonation (morphing), and many others.

Now I think all of you will understand why his rules are suddenly established. Ok before going to the current situation we’re all should know what are the rules are?

First, we have to know the name of this act Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. These rules will require compliance by our tech giants operating in India such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, and the other OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime. Basically, these rules are focus on the issues like fake news, fake user accounts, and monitoring of illegal activities by platforms. Finally, I will list down the rules stated by Supreme Court:

1)   If you are doing business in India, then you should need to setup chief compliance officer, Nodal contact person, and a Resident Grievance officer, and each of the above are required to be Indian residents.

2)   The significant social media intermediaries (the social media who has more than 50 lakh accounts) must have the physical address in India.

3)   They are required to Endeavour to deploy technology based on measures, including automated tools to identify the information that depicts rape, child abuse, or other information that consider to be illegal should be removed and this process will be monitored by the chief compliance officer and submit the details about this to government on the month basis.

4)   User verification on the platform should voluntary one not compulsory at the same time he given details are kept safe, which means ensure security over user privacy.

5)   Identification of the first originator of information – such identification of user will arise the question on the end to end encryption offered by services such as Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, and etc.: and whether identifying the user f the ‘first originator’ is possible for a platform.

These are the process are done on Feb 25, 2021. Now all of you come to today’s situation what we’re all already know that the Supreme court gives 3month time for complying with these rules that will end today(25 May 2021). And we also know that if the rules are not complying with the appropriate platform, then they will face the countermeasures by the Court.

Basically, India is the 3rd largest country that is using social media platforms. So the other countries will be watching on to how the platforms respond to the increased regulations. Not only India but also the other regions are looking to implement their own parameters on how tech firms can operate and the Indian model could provide some more lessons in developing their plans.

Ok, now we all know that what’s the problem is. And we overall know that if they go against India then they will face many crises. But if they accept the rules they have to change their basic architecture. But how this affects us. Did you know we already face this situation last year, Yes, last year the Government banned TikTok, PubG, and other China make apps. This affected many creators on those platforms. The same will happen if they ban these platforms. But in this time it not only affect creator but also most of the industries truly dependent on these platforms. So the damage will be more that fives time compared to the previous one. Because 4 out of 5 users use these types of platforms. But all we have to do is to wait to know what was going to happen?

Why I’m saying all these things in a negative way is because no one of these platforms will fully comply with these rules and regulations. But some of them implement it. Again what we can do is to wait and watch what s going to happen.

Thank You.

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Once again thank you for reading!!!

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