NEW IT RULES & SOCIAL MEDIA BAN

The deadline to comply with the new IT rules 2021 by MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY has ended on 25 May (Tuesday) they were released on 25 Feb 2021 and were given 3 months to all the significant social media platforms with more than 5 million users to comply with, but some social media giants seem to not agree with the rules.

Before discussing further the matter, let's have a look at the main points of focus in the new IT rules. It is a 34 pages document issued by the ministry in both languages (Hindi&English), we will have only an overview here-

• A three-tier grievance redressal framework
  
• Active monitoring of content on the platform
• Monthly compliance report for Indian users
• Self-regulation mechanism 
• Oversight mechanism created by the ministry

Social media is a very vast network, different platforms are there for multiple uses but these guidelines are in common for all of them. And all social media platforms which want to get operated in India need to follow the guidelines.

Removal of inappropriate content within a declared limit of time is ok but there is something more than that to look forward to. Recently after the end of the deadline to comply with rules WHATSAPP has taken the Indian government to court saying that new guidelines will hinder their user's privacy and their fundamental right to privacy.

READ the above paragraph again and think are they really concerned about our privacy? I am not an engineer or a person who understands the minor technicalities of these apps but if Whatsapp says that the chats are end-to-end encrypted then how its notified that a message has been forwarded many times. Facebook data leak issue, removing content, suspending accounts all we have seen and now the government wants social media platforms to enable traceability of messages from the original sender, this may be good for them from a bigger perspective but I don't find a point agreeing to this.

Now what surprised me the most is according to ndtv.com government's reply to  WhatsApp's lawsuit is - ' No fundamental right, including the right to privacy, is absolute' 

WOW! what to say now. well, Facebook and Google are ready to comply with the rules but Twitter is still not agreed  Let's see what happens next.