The Government of India notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2022 on October 28.
- In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) and clauses (z) and (zg) of sub-section (2) of section 87 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (21 of 2000), the Central Government has notified the act.
Key features
- The central government shall establish one or more Grievance Appellate Committees (GAC) within three month.
- Each GAC will consist of a chairperson and two whole-time members appointed by the Centre, of which one will be a member ex-officio and two shall be independent members.
- Under the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2022, any person aggrieved by a decision of the intermediary’s grievance officer may prefer an appeal to the GAC within 30 days from the date of receipt of communication from the intermediary.
- The committee will “make an endeavour to resolve the appeal finally within thirty calendar days from the date of receipt of the appeal”.
- The GAC’s decisions will be binding on the social media companies.
- The amended rules provide for an online dispute resolution mechanism.
- A social media company, referred to as an intermediary, must ensure that users do not post or share any information that does not belong to them.
- The IT rules also put the onus on the intermediary to ensure content posted on its platform is not obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another’s privacy, hate speech, promoting illegal activities or threatening “the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India”.
- Intermediaries are now required to at least once a year inform their users of these rules, regulations and privacy policy.
- In case of a complaint against a post that violates rules, the intermediaries must acknowledge the report within 24 hours, resolve it in 15 days, and if the complaint contains a request to remove the post, do so within 72 hours.
