Digital India Act: Govt Plans Category-Wise Regulations For Online Intermediaries

The upcoming Digital India Act will reportedly classify various online intermediaries such as social media platforms, ecommerce, and fact-checking portals as different categories and come out with specific regulations for each of these categories. 

With the upcoming Bill, the government is also looking at a departure from the long-standing concept of ‘intermediaries’, Indian Express reported.

“The new law will prescribe different kinds of intermediaries because their regulation has to be different. Intermediaries will be bucketed as social media platforms, e-commerce platforms, AI platforms, fact-checking platforms etc…There are no pure intermediaries anymore, so the adjudication and our understanding of it has to go beyond intermediary liability. We need to start seeing intermediaries as digital service providers,” a senior official told the publication. 

The construct of intermediaries is also new for Indian regulators. While the original IT Act, 2000 finds no mention of intermediaries, the idea was first introduced as part of the new IT Rules specifically for social media platforms.

The new regulation will extend the norms, beyond what is currently prescribed for intermediaries, to other online entities including ecommerce portals and fact-checking platforms 

As reported earlier, the upcoming Bill is likely expected to replace the current Information Technology Act, 2000 and is close to being drafted. On Friday (December 9), Minister of State (MoS) for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the draft Bill would be released for public consultation by December-end. 

As per the report, the upcoming Bill is also expected to introduce a regulator for the digital space and will also specify penal consequences for flouting norms. It will also have provisions to govern emerging arenas such as blockchain and metaverse. 

The Bill is expected to have a big impact on tech giants including Google, Amazon, Meta, Amazon, Apple, among others.

New Law To Fix New Challenges?

The Digital India Act is expected to be the part of an umbrella framework that will include other legislations including the recently unveiled Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 along with the Data Governance Act.

The proposed norms are expected to address the challenges including ‘user harms’ faced online, misinformation, fake news, and doxxing. 

There have also been reports that Bill could have provisions that make social media platforms accountable for their algorithms to prevent misuse of data of Indian citizens. Additionally, it could also hold social media platforms accountable for content violations and cybercrimes that take place on the sites. 

Panning the existing IT Act, Chandrasekhar recently said that the current norms predate the internet and have no mention of the word ‘internet’ itself. The new Bill is the centre’s attempt to replace the two-decade-old law and address the new-age challenges of the digital world.