How amendments to IT Rules add more layers of social media censorship

October 28, 2022 was not a good day for those who cherish freedom of expression in the otherwise vibrant social media. 

The amendments to the IT Rules 2001 notified on that fateful day have given rise to widespread apprehensions that these changes would only reinforce censorship of social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and YouTube.

Key changes

What is new in these amendments and in what way do they change the IT Rules, 2021? There are two important and substantial changes:

While the earlier 2021 IT Rules directed social media companies to remove objectionable content posted on sites only when someone filed an objection before an internal grievance redressal mechanism and asked for its removal, the amended 2022 IT Rules enjoin the social media companies to do prior screening of the content that is being posted on their platform and puts the onus of removing such objectionable content on the social media companies themselves even before the content gets posted.

Also read: New IT rules to put greater obligations on social media platforms: IT minister

In other words, the amended rules make the social media companies censor the content and indulge in pre-censorship before users could post anything on the platform.

This is just one new layer of censorship. There are three such layers of censorship in all under the IT Act and Rules.

Grievance panel will control content

Secondly, the amended IT Rules provide for the formation of a Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) within three months after the rules get notified and come into force. Anyone not satisfied by the decision of the internal grievance redressal mechanism of the social media companies can appeal to the GAC, whose decision would be binding on both the social media company and the user.

However, going beyond its role as an arbitrator in disputes, the GAC has also been empowered by IT Rules 2022 to decide what can go on social media and what cannot.

This is the second layer of censorship. Besides these two levels of censorship, the IT Act itself had originally bestowed on the government ultimate powers to block or remove any social media content it deems objectionable as defined in the Act and the 2021 Rules.

Multiple layers of censorship

The government already has the last word under the IT Act to block or remove any objectionable content that politically endangers unity, integrity, sovereignty, state security, friendly relations with other countries, public order, or material that can incite violence, or invade privacy, or which causes harassment along gender and racist or ethnic lines or promotes enmity between different religious or caste groups etc., or obscene and pornographic material. Why does it want both self-censorship by social media companies and censorship by institutions misleadingly called ‘Appellate Committees,’ but which are de facto censor boards?

In fact, on April 4, 2022, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting ordered the shutdown of 22 news channels operating on YouTube, three Twitter accounts, one Facebook account and one news site with its powers under the IT Act. The draconian IT Rules 2021 had already become operational and by April 2021, Facebook, Twitter and even Google had removed 100 items posted online as ordered by the government.

Also read: IT rules: Social media cos want personal liability exemption for compliance officers, says study

IT Rules 2021 are still sub-judice and Twitter told Karnataka High Court that 50-60 per cent of the tweets the Centre had directed it to block were innocuous. By some bizarre coincidence, FIRs were filed against the then Twitter India CEO by the extreme right Bajrang Dal activists in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. So, as the government has already brought social media outfits under its thumb, why does it still want to proliferate the number of censorship agencies?

In 2015, the Supreme Court struck down the controversial provision 66A of the IT Act and three weeks back reiterated that there should be no more prosecutions under that scrapped 66A provision even in old cases. Probably, the government wants greater legal entitlement for censorship.

Any kind of censorship is politically a highly-contentious issue. The government also probably wants to cushion itself by opting to address only a few politically highly-sensitive issues even while putting in place an institutional form that can cover a broad range of issues on a routine day-to-day basis besides forcing the social media companies to resort to self-censorship in the first place.

Even after putting an enormous burden on social media companies for pre-censorship of content being posted, the government is sceptical of their ability. Hence, another institutional layer is empowered with veto powers on dictating what can and what can’t be posted on social media. 

Vaguely defining objectionable content

A Bengaluru-based activist who was earlier working with the Centre for Internet and Security told The Federal: “In the IT Rules 2021, the definition of ‘objectionable content’ that cannot be posted on social media is so broad and vague that anything under the sun can be dubbed as ‘objectionable’. Thereby, the amended rules give enormous leeway to the authoritarian and restrictive forces and forces intolerant of any kind of liberality.”

The civil society organisation Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has come out with a statement critical of IT Rules Amendment 2022. IT Rules, 2021 have been unequivocally criticised by experts, civil society, digital rights groups, industry bodies, technology companies, technical groups and members of the press for curbing digital freedom, and the 2022 amendments render them worse, the statement observed.

Explained: Amendments proposed to IT Rules 2021, and what they mean

Tejasi Panjiar, Associate Policy Counsel, IFF, told The Federal: “The lack of transparency around decisions to moderate content has time and again put users at a disadvantage. However, the notified IT Amendment Rules, 2022 take this a step further as they allow the Union government to influence such decision-making by having the final say in what content stays on the internet and what doesn’t. Such proximity of public officials to moderation practices will inevitably lead to heavy moderation of online speech.”

Despite its share of problems like nasty trolling and child porn, social media ushered in a real spring of free expression by the hitherto voiceless ordinary people and remained a vibrant arena of vox populi. No wonder supposedly strong governments get tremors in their knees while confronting social media.