India to Decide on Appeals Panel for Social Media’s Content Moderation

The authorities is contemplating whether or not to arrange an appeals panel with the facility to reverse the content material moderation choices of social media corporations, the data expertise ministry mentioned, in what could be the primary such transfer of its sort worldwide.

The revelation got here in a doc looking for feedback on plans for adjustments to IT guidelines that took impact final yr, and goal to manage social media content material, making corporations equivalent to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter extra accountable.

The doc, made public on Thursday, proposed a number of such enchantment panels. It set a deadline of 30 days for appeals in opposition to choices by firm grievance officers, whereas the panels themselves get an additional 30 days to take up the matter.

Social media corporations are already required to have an in-house grievance redressal officer and designate executives to co-ordinate with legislation enforcement officers.

“The intermediary shall respect the rights accorded to citizens under the constitution,” the draft guidelines say in a newly-added part, referring to social media corporations.

India ranks among the many largest sources worldwide of presidency requests for content material takedowns to Twitter and Meta.

Tension has flared between the federal government and Twitter, which declined final yr to conform totally with orders to take down accounts and posts accused of spreading misinformation about farmers’ protests in opposition to the federal government.

Last yr, authorities officers mentioned social media platforms could not be eligible to hunt legal responsibility exemptions as intermediaries or the hosts of person content material in the event that they didn’t observe home info and expertise legal guidelines.

© Thomson Reuters 2022