Govt Writes To Social Media Platforms On Compliance With IT Rules 2021

New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has written to social media platforms asking them to furnish details of compliance with the new ‘The Information Technology Intermediary (Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021’.

The Centre had provided platforms like Facebook, Twitter and others a three-month window to comply with the new social media rules.

The government had notified the IT (Guidelines For Intermediaries And Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, on February 25 to regulate social media intermediaries by imposing a code of ethics and mandating a three-tier grievance redressal framework.

Thus the ‘deadline’ ended on Tuesday, May 25, reported Live Law.

The Rules provide 16-due diligence steps to be followed by intermediaries in India. This includes an obligation to not host, store or publish any information which is prohibited by virtue of it not being in the interest of public order; decency or morality; sovereignty and integrity of India; security of the State, etc.

The Centre is empowered to ask messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, etc. to trace the ‘first originator’ of messages.