Centre Mulling To Govern Social Media Algorithms In Digital India Act

The central government is mulling a proposal to make social media platforms accountable for algorithms that they use to offer bespoke content to users based on their browsing history and profile. 

The Economic Times reported sources quoting that the digital India act’s (DIA) draft will also include provisions to govern latest technologies used by social media platforms such as advanced quantum computing, metaverse and AI, among others. 

By including the said proposal, India will become one of the few countries in the world to govern legal oversight of proprietary software codes used by social media platforms.  

“The idea is to prevent misuse of Indian citizens’ data. Even if the data is stored in India, it can be misused by highly advanced algorithms. That must be prevented,” said a government official in the mentioned report.

The development comes a few days after the Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar shared the Centre’s plans to add data regulation norms in the novel DIA.

Prior to that, it was reported that cybercrimes taking place on social media platforms and content violations and misinformation spread by  OTT platforms will fall under the purview of DIA.

At present, The DIA will include mandates regulating the way tech colossal process data. It will be done to avert social media giants from identifying an individual user from an anonymous dataset. 

Sources informed that social media giants that deal with scores of personal data on a daily basis have been asked to share methods as to how they collect user data in specific cases. These requests will be made backed by law enforcement firms via court orders.

Social media giants use algorithms to identify how users use consumer content. For example, Twitter and Facebook have a feature called ‘news feeds’ that show customised content based on users’ location and interests. 

The proprietary codes used by these social media platforms analyse chunks of data to build specific profiles based on shopping history and other factors including gender, age, friends and family.

Talking about the DIA, the draft is based on the draft of India’s Telecom Bill and the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill that were introduced this year. It is concise and simple and does not leave room for executive rulemaking in the offing, considering the shifting tech landscape of the country.

“We are not going to overload the DIA with too many legal regulations. Instead, it will be an umbrella framework with space for executive rules which can be updated as required with time,” officials said.

DIA’s draft, which is in the final stages of making, will be shared with the Indian law ministry for review and then be available for public consultation. The draft will replace the IT Act 2000, which is governing India’s tech sector to date.