It’s important to ring-fence creative expression online

Several industry associations have written to India’s ministry of electronics and information technology, asking for clarifications to the Narendra Modi government’s latest Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2021. The rules, notified in February this year, put social media companies, digital media and news services under greater scrutiny. The digital media industry has also requested time to comply, for want of standard operating procedures. It is worth examining this development from a public interest perspective.

The IT Rules, 2021, expand the scope of Section 69A of the IT Act 2000, originally meant to govern intermediaries. Digital applications like social media are intermediaries in the strictest sense, since they merely facilitate interactions among internet users.