India’s proposed IT rules might put it in the ‘same league as China and Russia’

The Indian government might give itself new powers of censorship and suppression of Internet content through a proposed draft for the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2018. The draft is now open for the public to send their comments and suggestions until tomorrow.

The draft has been prepared by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and will replace rules that were notified in April 2011. The draft was put together after a calling attention motion on “Misuse of social media platforms and spreading of fake news” was admitted in the Rajya Sabha in the 2018 monsoon session.

According to a report in The New York Times, the proposals include the option for Indian officials to “demand that Facebook, Google, Twitter, TikTok and others remove posts or videos that they deem libellous, invasive of privacy, hateful or deceptive”. The report says: “Internet companies would also have to build automated screening tools to block Indians from seeing “unlawful information or content.” Another provision would weaken the privacy protections of messaging services like WhatsApp so that the authorities could trace messages back to their original senders.”

NYT compared the powers under the proposal to “censorship in China”. It said civil liberties groups and critics said the changes would “violate constitutional protections for free speech and privacy and put India in the same league as autocratic countries like China and Russia”.