New IT Act (2020) Amendment tabled in India to make social media platforms more accountable

In a bid to stop unlawful content going viral online in India, the government is on the verge of amending the Information Technology Act (2020). If the new intermediary guidelines receive green lights, social media companies will be more responsible for such potentially harmful content. 

To better put things into perspective, the current section 79 of the IT Act (2000) states that an intermediary is not responsible for content uploaded by third parties. It has led to situations where any type of content created on a particular platform (for example, TikTok), but it went viral on Facebook. Under current guidelines, Facebook is not responsible or accountable for this viral content. The amended act mainly addresses this issue.

Once the guidelines get approved, these platforms will have to ensure that if unlawful content is going viral on one platform, others should also take steps to remove it.  Moreover, government officials also urged companies like Facebook and TikTok to invest more in content moderation to act against such content, as per an Economic Times report. 

The amendment was first tabled on March 12, 2020, at which time, there was high civil unrest in the Indian capital due to fake news and hate speeches as the government passed the highly controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.  

The amendment finalized by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) is currently awaiting final approval. 

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