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Journalism of Courage
The Centre will release a draft of the Digital India Bill in the first week of June, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said. The legislation will regulate a wide gamut of digital services including social media platforms as the Centre looks to replace India’s decades old Internet law, the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Chandrasekhar was speaking at the second ‘pre-draft’ consultation Tuesday. The first leg of the consultation took place in March.
The Digital India Bill is a key pillar of an overarching framework of technology regulations the Centre is building which also includes the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022, and a policy for non-personal data governance.
During his presentation, the minister reiterated that the government was considering whether online platforms should continue enjoying safe harbour protections, which is currently afforded to them under the IT Act, 2000, or such protections should become conditional. Under Section 79 of the IT Act, 2000, intermediaries such as social media platforms enjoy legal immunity against third party content provided they carry out certain due diligence measures including taking down content directed by the government.
However, since the Information Technology Rules of 2021, and subsequent amendments to the rules, more conditions have been added to the immunity.
Most recently, the IT Ministry said that social media platforms will have to take down content related to the government which is flagged by a yet-to-be notified fact checking body, failing which they could become liable for that piece of content and be taken to court.
As the nature of platforms changes rapidly on the Internet, Chandrasekhar said that one of the core questions the Centre was grappling with is whether there should be safe harbour protections for online platforms at all.
Chandrasekhar also said that the upcoming law will regulate emerging technologies like ChatGPT from the “prism of user harm”.
The Indian Express has earlier reported that some of the harms the government was considering include deliberate misinformation, cyberbullying, doxxing, and identity theft, among others.
This paper was also the first to report in December 2022 that under the Digital India Act, the government was considering classification of intermediaries and separate norms for them and could include fact-checking platforms in it as well. Chandrasekhar’s presentation Tuesday confirmed the classifications.
An effective adjudicatory mechanism will also be explored under the Digital India Bill. The mechanism should be easily accessible, deliver timely remedies to citizens, resolve cyber disputes, and create cyber jurisprudence going forward, he said.
