What are India’s intermediary protection rules?
The back and forth between Twitter and the Indian government has put intermediary protection laws in the limelight again with its share of fake news and misinformation. Mint explains what these rules mean, and why they are important.
What is intermediary status?
India’s Information Technology (IT) Act covers a broad set of companies under the intermediary status. According to Section 2 of the IT Act, apart from companies such as Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and other social media platforms, intermediaries also include firms such as Amazon.com Inc. and Zomato. The definition of intermediaries even covers cyber cafes, which can be used by users to access the internet. What is worth noting is that intermediary status and intermediary protection, also called safe harbour, are defined in different parts of the Act and losing the protection doesn’t mean losing the intermediary status.
What is intermediary protection?
Section 79 of the IT Act provides protection to intermediaries from being held liable for data, content, and communication that they have no personal knowledge of, shared by users through them. The protections were formulated after Avinash Bajaj, the chief executive of auction portal Baazee.com, was arrested in 2004 for an obscene MMS clip being put up for sale on the platform. This case showed that platforms could be held liable for allowing illegal use cases, but only if they did not take adequate measures to avoid such instances. These measures are defined in the new intermediary guidelines, which came into effect on 26 May.
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What does losing the protection mean?
An intermediary can be taken to court for not following a government request even with safe harbour, but only with respect to that post. However, if a platform like Twitter does not comply with the intermediary guidelines, it loses the shield entirely, which makes them susceptible to accusations of publishing content that breaks the law.
