Self-regulation: Divide among Big Tech firms on way forward

In proposed amendments to the Information Technology Rules, MeitY has suggested setting up Grievance Appellate Committees (GACs), even though the Ministry said it is open to a self-regulatory body of social media companies to handle such issues.

In June, during a public consultation with stakeholders, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrashekhar had said that the government will go ahead with the proposed appellate committees.

He had added that if the industry were to come up with a self- regulatory mechanism that worked for the government, the Ministry would “move to that.” During a closed-door meeting, Google is learnt to have expressed reservations about the current structure of the self-regulatory body which, in a draft policy, said that decisions passed by the body will be binding in nature. This is where the company’s concern stems from.

“Orders passed by the GAC can be challenged in court, whereas the scope for challenging a ‘binding’ order passed by a self-regulatory body is much lower,” a source said.

Another argument is that while having senior executives of all social media companies in the self-regulatory body could make it easy to reach a consensus, disagreements are also likely. “Different companies have their respective content moderation guidelines. What is acceptable for a certain firm may not be OK for the other because their community guidelines are different. So the real challenge for any self regulatory body is to reach a consensus on content moderation decisions for all platforms,” an executive said.

In a statement, a Google spokesperson said: “We had a preliminary meeting and are engaging in active discussions with the industry as well as the Government. We are exploring all options and look forward to working with stakeholders to find the best possible solution.” Facebook declined to comment. Queries sent to Twitter, Snap and IAMAI remained unanswered.

An absence of consensus among social media companies could jeopardise its bargaining power with the government to allow a self-regulatory body instead of its proposed GACs. Industry bodies like the US-India Business Council and the Asia Internet Coalition which count major American tech firms as members, have opposed the formation of these government-appointed committees, questioning their effect on independence.

Industry sources also hinted at a “disjointed” way in which deliberations about the self- regulatory body have happened so far. “Many IAMAI members, including some social media companies, were not aware about the steps the body had taken towards the formalisation of the self-regulatory body. A WhatsApp group was initially created and a document was circulated among the members of the group which did not involve many IAMAI members,” a source at another tech firm said.

The IAMAI currently runs two self regulatory bodies – the Digital Publisher Content Grievances Council (DPCGC) for online content streaming companies, and a body for edtech companies called India Edtech Consortium (IEC). Another self regulatory body that was set up under the aegis of IAMAI, the Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council (BACC), which represented firms like CoinSwitch Kuber, WazirX, and CoinDCX, was dissolved last month due to regulatory uncertainty surrounding cryptocurrencies.

Senior government officials said that MeitY is expected to go ahead with the GACs in the final version of the IT Rules amendments as it is of the view that a self-regulatory body may not be inclusive of all companies and could end up “prioritising” a handful of the bigger social media firms like Facebook, Twitter and Google.