India’s New Rules For Social Media, Streaming, and News Platforms

And what it means for user privacy and content censorship

Photo by Naveed Ahmed on Unsplash

Last month, the Indian government issued multiple orders to Twitter to block certain tweets and accounts in relation to the ongoing farmers' protest. Twitter complied with the orders and blocked nearly 250 accounts, including accounts of investigative journalism outlets, activist groups, and prominent politicians.

These accounts, however, were restored within hours after Twitter faced a public outcry over political censorship. But the government doubled down by issuing a non-compliance notice and threatening jail time for officials.

Following this, Twitter once again blocked multiple accounts, but held its ground on accounts related to “news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians” saying that blocking these accounts would would “violate their fundamental right to free expression under Indian law.” If this incident were to happen this month, Twitter will be in violation of multiple laws thanks to the new rules issued by the government on 25 February.

What are the new rules and who do they apply to?

The new rules called the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media…