India is the country with most number of social media users around the world. Social media companies operating in India have to implement new Information Technology Guidelines Rules 2021 which are applicable from today. These guidelines were released in February and gave three months to comply with all social media platform tech giants companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. Social media companies that have more than 50 lakh daily active users in India are designated ‘significant’ social media intermediaries.
The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 is secondary or subordinate legislation that suppresses India’s Intermediary Guidelines Rules 2011. The 2021 rules have stemmed from section 87 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and are a combination of the draft Intermediaries Rules, 2018 and the OTT Regulation and Code of Ethics for Digital Media.
The new information technology rules 2021 for digital platforms includes the requirement to appoint of a Chief Compliance Officer, a nodal contact person and a Resident Grievance Officer and actively monitoring the content on the platform to take down the content including vulgar posts, revenge porn, spreading fake news, hateful contents, unlawful images and videos, etc.
