A Balanced View of Net Viewing

Context: The new Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules seek to strike a fine balance between freedom and responsibility in the online world.

Factors that necessitate the enactment of new rules

• Lack of responsibility and accountability: by the intermediaries.
• Inadequacy of existing framework: which makes intermediaries unable to check the proliferation of fake news and illegal and harmful content on their platforms.
  • Several countries like Germany, France, Australia and Singapore have enacted legislation to deal with unlawful and harmful content on these platforms.

Arguments supporting the new rules

• It creates due diligence that makes intermediaries more responsible and accountable: through the following features:
  • Specifies to create a mechanism for redressal of grievances.
  • Privacy policy: It envisages removal of content if there is a violation of the privacy policy or user agreement.
  • An agreement not to host any unlawful content: The content could be removed by an order by a court or an authorised government agency; or based on the grievances received –
    • This is in accordance with the conditions as laid down by the Supreme Court in the 2015 ‘Shreya Singhal vs Union of India’ case.
  • Additional due diligence by ‘significant social media intermediaries’: defined on the number of registered users (currently specified as 50 lakh) in India; by -
    • Mandating important officials like the chief compliance officer to be Indian residents.
    • Mandating that the intermediaries should have a physical contact address in India.
  • They shall provide information about the first originator in India of any unlawful message.
• Self-regulatory framework: The digital media ethics code under these rules creates a largely self-regulatory framework for publishers of online news.
  • The oversight mechanism of Government comes into play only after the redressal mechanism at the first two levels has failed to address the grievance satisfactorily.
• Presence of Protection from liability for third-party content: Similar to the exemptions to intermediaries under Section 79 of Information Technology (IT) Act if due diligence is observed.

Conclusion: John Stuart Mill explicitly recognised the ‘harm principle’ while arguing for placing some limitations on free expression. The new rules seek to strike a fine balance between freedom and responsibility.