The Narendra Modi government has defended the amendments to IT rules and played down concerns over censorship.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, the minister of state for electronics and information technology (MeitY), Rajeev Chandrasekhar said it is the moral obligation of every government to protect its citizens from harm created on the internet.

Chandrasekhar said grievance officers appointed by online companies were not doing their job and so the need to introduce Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC). He further stated that the government has no interest in moderating content.

He said, "In May 2021, when we said platforms should appoint a grievance officer, it was obvious that the grievance officer would address grievances. However if the companies appoint a grievance officer and then bounce all the grievances back saying thank you for sending your grievance and we will revert to you when we have to revert to you, then they are not doing their job."

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“Government has no interest in moderating any content on the platforms. It wants to work in partnership with platforms to create a safe and trusted internet. However if a platform chooses that it doesn’t want to do it, then we are saying that the safe harbour under Section 79 of the IT Act falls.

Minus the safe harbour, if you do harm to a consumer or if you are party to harm to the consumer, then the consumer can sue you and the government will not stand and protect you as an intermediary with Section 79 protection. So the GAC will enable digital appeals and will be an easy way to resolve issues between citizens and platforms. The citizens can also approach courts if they want," Chandrasekhar added.

Under the amended IT rules, a social media company, referred to as an intermediary, must ensure that users do not post or share any information that does not belong to them.

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The IT rules also put the onus on the intermediary to ensure content posted on its platform is not obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another's privacy, hate speech, promoting illegal activities or threatening "the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India".

Watch the video for the entire conversation.

First Published:Nov 8, 2022 8:59 PM IST