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This comes at a time when
calls to additional regulate Fb have intensified the world over following revelations by whistle-blower Frances Haugen.
The Centre is watching the state of affairs evolve globally and thinks the “blanket exemption” given to social media firms has to go, senior authorities officers informed ET.
“The platforms should be accountable for the content material; they can not protect behind the protected harbour, they should be rather more proactive in figuring out and eradicating dangerous and hateful content material,” an official mentioned.
Whereas the brand new IT Guidelines handle some considerations round flagging and eradicating content material, and have additionally established a grievance mechanism, a rethink is feasible solely by modifying the bigger Data Expertise Act, 2000, which was final amended in 2008, lengthy earlier than smartphones turned mainstream within the nation.
India is closing in on 750 million web customers and is the biggest market when it comes to customers for a lot of know-how giants, together with Fb.
“There’s a want for laws on this space and the federal government is already pondering on these traces. Be it in Europe or America, all are having a rethink on the protected harbour provision and we additionally assume that it must be modified,” mentioned the official.
Below Part 79 of the IT Act, intermediaries together with social media corporations get immunity from content material posted on their platforms by third-party customers.
Showing on CNN’s “State of the Union” present on Sunday, Fb’s vice chairman of worldwide affairs, Nick Clegg, mentioned the corporate was engaged on new measures together with a “take a break” function on its apps to immediate teenagers away from dangerous content material.
He additionally mentioned Fb’s algorithms “must be held to account, if mandatory, by regulation so that individuals can match what our programs say they’re speculated to do from what truly occurs.”
Fb is open to altering a 1996 provision of US legislation that insulates firms from legal responsibility for what customers put up, he added.
Fb is open to limiting these protections, “contingent on them making use of the programs and their insurance policies as they’re speculated to,” Clegg mentioned.
Haugen has accused the know-how big of placing revenue forward of security. She is predicted to testify earlier than the UK Parliament’s On-line Security Invoice committee on October 25. The committee is within the technique of inspecting a legislation that imposes obligations on social media firms to guard customers, particularly youngsters.
Leaders of France and New Zealand are additionally holding discussions at a summit with main international know-how firms in Paris on Wednesday, as governments the world over are mulling new laws to comprise hate speech and dangerous content material on the web.
The most recent revelations round Fb by Haugen allege that the US-based social media community harms youngsters’s psychological well being and stokes division in society by selling hateful and violent content material.
India’s IT Guidelines, which had been notified in Might,
put in place a mechanism for social media customers to flag problematic content material as quickly as they see it and asks firms to submit compliance reviews on such complaints every month.
“We’re engaged on strengthening our personal method to sort out the menace of dangerous content material, we’ve notified the IT Guidelines however to essentially put extra tooth into it, we’ve to go for an modification in IT Act. It’s one thing already being debated and there’s an inner crew which is engaged on the draft,” the official mentioned.
The federal government is on a “wait and watch” mode to see how the worldwide state of affairs evolves, the official added.
After Haugen, a former product supervisor at Fb, revealed her identification and testified earlier than the US Senate Commerce Committee, a number of circumstances are being made for extra regulation of social media firms.
Lawmakers are calling for an impartial regulator with the facility to audit and examine the massive tech firms together with making a case for a brand new privateness coverage so that individuals can “opt-in” in the event that they favour permitting their on-line information to be shared.
They’re additionally asking the USA to replace youngsters’s privateness legal guidelines and its competitors coverage and require tech firms to make their algorithms extra clear.
