All you need to know about the tussle between India and social media giants

The Centre on 25 February announced new intermediary guidelines, or IT rules, and gave significant intermediaries (platforms with over 5 million users) like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram three months to comply, a deadline that ended on Tuesday. What’s next?

Will Facebook, Twitter etc., shut down?

No. Neither the government, nor the rules have mentioned any ban. In fact, experts say the rules cannot lead to a ban. Non-compliance with the rules only means that social media intermediaries and internet firms won’t get safe harbour protections mentioned in Section 79 of India’s Information Technology (IT) Act. This is the part that protects these companies from being sued for posts, comments and text messages that users send over their platforms.