Why Instagram, Facebook, Twitter are not banned by the Indian Government?

Why Instagram, Facebook, Twitter Are Not Banned In India?  

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram faced a ban in India asked by the government if they did not follow the new Intermediary Guidelines. The deadline to simply accept the rules set by the govt ended on May 25 but thus far none of the platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter has complied with the new regulations yet. The Indian version of Twitter, Koo, is the only social media app that has complied with the new guidelines of the Indian Government before the May 25 deadline. In February 2021, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology had given a 3 month time to the social media platforms to apply the new IT rules.

Why it was necessary to apply IT Rules?

As you all know how quickly fake accounts, fake IDs, fake news spread on social media platforms these days. Some people then misuse those fake news and blackmail the users by creating their fake accounts. If we think that our privacy is destroyed, our freedom is going away but these fake news, fake accounts, scammers have to stop doing scams and for that social media platforms have to follow the IT Rules made by the government to stop these fake activities.

Now if someone is using our name wrongly and is leaking our personal information like mobile number, address, email id then what should we do?

Our first approach is to reach the police and the police will say that there is something wrong with you, you should quickly go to cybercrime and get the complaint done. Then the people of cybercrime will write a mail to the people of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and write that a complaint raised and someone is blackmailing a user by making a fake account.

Now, this process will take at least 1 - 2 weeks but by then the life of the user has deteriorated. But the government along with police and cybercrime people do not have the authority to remove that content or fake account from Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube. Only facebook people can remove that content and it will take 7 - 30 days time.

Everything is in the hands of the Facebook company whether it will remove the content or not !!!

Now the government says that in February 2021, 

The IT Minister says that if all these social media platforms are used for any wrong work or any scam, then there will be an investigation. All these apps will run in India only when they follow the IT Rules of Indian Government.

He gave 3 months' time to all social media platforms and OTT Platforms and said that IT rules should be applied by 25th May.

What are IT Rules?

IT rules consist of some guidelines and these guidelines are like that - Social Media platforms have to appoint officers - Chief Compliance Officer, a Nodal Contact Person, and a Resident Grievance Officer and these officers will not be from your side, these officers should be from the government side. These rules were compulsory to follow those platforms that have more than 50 lakh users. 

3 reasons to keep government officers -

• See the complaints registered by users as soon as possible.

• The content that is being uploaded should also be checked through the officers of the government.

• Officers should have the authority to remove that content at a time if it is wrong.

In this whole process, people are feeling that their privacy will be leaked, freedom will end but it will give us the proper content and difference between right and wrong. Only then there be some difference between media and social media. The officers will stop those who do wrong things like making fake accounts or spammers.

The government's decision is to keep our security and privacy safe and not to snatch our freedom.

Now, these IT Rules should be followed by all Social Media Platforms till 25th May but till now only one app - "Koo" which is known as Indian Twitter and it has followed these rules.

But these IT Rules were not followed by Facebook, Whatsapp, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram till 25th May. Then the Indian Government went to Twitter's office on 26th May and gave a new notice.

Earlier it was said that if someone's content is wrong or harmful, then social media platforms will not take responsibility for it because we are only intermediatory. We are only working to convey information to people, but we are not responsible for the content. And if a user has put the wrong content, then action will be taken on it and not on any company.

But now they do not follow these rules till 25th May, so the protection they had till now is gone. Because the government has sent a new notice, this is the new rule in it -

As long as they do not follow the IT rules, then if the user can misuse the social media and can put any wrong content on any social media platform, then the action will be taken not on the user but on the company or the employee of that company. No action will be taken on the user who put the wrong content because now it is the responsibility of the company itself.

Therefore the government will not ban social media platforms but they can take criminal action against any social media platforms, if they have done something wrong or their users have also done something wrong, then action will be taken on social media platforms.