Centre plans to remove liability protections for social media firms

The Union government is planning to remove hardcoded liability protections for social media companies from the law and instead empower itself to hand out “safe harbour” license-like certifications, people aware of discussions for a sweeping new bill have said, a move that could have far-reaching implications for speech on the web and the policies applying to it.

Social media companies such as Meta and X (formerly Twitter) are classified as intermediaries according to section 79 of the information technology (IT) Act, which effectively makes them immune from the liability of the content their users post, an approach that has been globally accepted. But increasingly, these companies have been under fire for not fulfilling the conditions that the liability protections are offered with, necessitating a rethink.