Govt Tightens Grip On Social Media Entities, Presses For Release Of Monthly Compliance Report

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has reportedly reminded social media platforms to release their monthly compliance reports under the Information Technology Rules 2021.

As per an advisory reviewed by Moneycontrol, the IT Ministry has directed social media platforms to ensure compliance with the due diligence obligations outlined under Rule 4 of the IT Rules 2021.

Rule 4 of the IT Rules mandates social media platforms to appoint a grievance officer, deploy automated content moderation tools and publish monthly compliance reports.

The ministry has asked platforms to publish monthly compliance reports, including complaints received, actions taken and content removed or blocked through automated monitoring, and to submit the report by the 10th of each month.

This comes months after the Bombay High Court directed social media platforms to remove deepfakes of NSE MD Ashishkumar Chauhan offering stock recommendations and to act on flagged content within 10 to 14 hours of receiving complaints from the NSE.

The Centre has tightened its stance on synthetic content, instructing social media platforms to actively combat deepfakes. PM Modi has also called for a global framework to tackle fake videos and safeguard AI.

The development also follows the upcoming release of the draft rules under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP Act) within a month.

DPDP Act aims to safeguard personal data of Indian users and puts guardrails to prevent data breaches. It envisages the creation of a Data Protection Board of India, which will be responsible for probing such breaches and imposing penalties.

It also puts additional responsibilities on social media platforms to ensure accuracy and completeness of data and to build reasonable security safeguards to prevent data breaches. The law also introduces the concept of “consent managers” via which users can offer, withdraw and manage their consent online. 

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