{"id":14324,"date":"2021-03-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/11-03-2021\/kerala-hc-restrains-centre-on-it-rules-2021\/"},"modified":"2021-03-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T00:00:00","slug":"kerala-hc-restrains-centre-on-it-rules-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/11-03-2021\/kerala-hc-restrains-centre-on-it-rules-2021","title":{"rendered":"Kerala HC Restrains Centre on IT Rules 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Kerala High Court restrained the Centre from taking coercive action against Live Law Media Private Ltd., which owns a legal news portal, for any non-compliance with Part III of the new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current-affairs\/25-02-2021\">IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Definition of Digital Media: <\/strong>It will cover digitised content that can be transmitted over the internet or computer networks.\n<ul>\n<li>It also includes intermediaries such as Twitter and Facebook, and publishers of news and current affairs content.<\/li>\n<li>It also includes so-called curators of such content.<\/li>\n<li>Publishers of news and current affairs content will cover online papers, news portals, news agencies, and news aggregators.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Not Covered:<\/strong> The act <strong>does not include the e-paper of any newspaper<\/strong> because print media comes under the purview of the Press Council of India, anyway, and has to follow established guidelines.\n<ul>\n<li>It also does <strong>not cover<\/strong> news operations that <strong>do not qualify as a \u201csystematic business activity\u201d<\/strong> \u2014 effectively <strong>excluding blogs and non-profit publishers<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Online News Media\u2019s treatment at par with Traditional Media:<\/strong> The Digital Media will also be brought under the ambit of <strong>section 69(A)<\/strong> of the <strong>Information Technology Act.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Section 69(A)<\/strong> gives <strong>takedown powers<\/strong> to the government.<\/li>\n<li>It also deprived the intermediaries of their <strong>\u201csafe-harbour protections\u201d under Section 79<\/strong> of the IT Act.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Newspapers and TV<\/strong> news channels are governed under the<strong> Press Council of India Act, 1978 and Cable Television Networks Regulation Act, 1995<\/strong> respectively.<\/li>\n<li>According to the proposed changes, these acts will also apply to online news and current affairs portals under the Code of Ethics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Three Tier Check Structure:<\/strong> Part III of the rules imposed three-tier complaints and adjudication structure on publishers.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Self-regulation<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Industry regulatory body<\/strong> headed by a former judge of the Supreme Court and High Court with additional members from an I&#038;B ministry approved panel.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Oversight mechanism<\/strong> that includes an <strong>inter ministerial committee<\/strong> with the authority to block access to content.\n<ul>\n<li>Inter ministerial Committee can also take suo motto cognisance of an issue, and any grievance flagged by the ministry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cfstatic.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/file_library\/mix_content\/172416803076405820_image.png\" style=\"height:335px; margin-left:100px; margin-right:100px; width:520px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Content Moderation Officers:<\/strong> Social media companies may need to appoint officers who will be responsible for complying with content moderation orders.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Originator of Message:<\/strong> New, stricter guidelines make it mandatory for platforms such as WhatsApp to aid in identifying the \u201coriginator\u201d of \u201cunlawful\u201d messages.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Grievance redressal portal:<\/strong> The rules mandate the creation of a grievance redressal portal as the central repository for receiving and processing all grievances.\n<ul>\n<li>They ask intermediaries to act on certain kinds of violations within 24 hours, and on all concerns of a complainant within 15 days.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Information Disclosure to Competent Authorities:<\/strong> The rules also say that competent authorities, through an order, may demand pertinent information for the purposes of prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of crimes.\n<ul>\n<li>However, It excludes the intermediary from having to disclose the content of the personal messages.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cfstatic.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/file_library\/mix_content\/131245148162783740_image.png\" style=\"height:261px; margin-left:100px; margin-right:100px; width:298px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Need of such Stringent Provisions<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Absence of Regulatory Body:<\/strong> For OTT and social media, there was no regulator like\n<ul>\n<li>Newspapers and TV news channels are governed under the Press Council of India Act, 1978 and Cable Television Networks Regulation Act, 1995 respectively.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Poor, Offensive and Abusive Content:<\/strong> The shows like Tandav, AIB roast, etc were highly criticised for their biased and adult content.\n<ul>\n<li>With deeper reach of smartphones, children and youth are being misled by such content.<\/li>\n<li>Presence of Clauses provisioning Reasonable Restrictions over Fundamental Rights.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Threat to Traditional Media:<\/strong> Due to less regulation and improving technology, these new social media were threatening and exploiting traditional media.\n<ul>\n<li>Facebook banned News pages in Australia.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Piracy and illegal content sharing:<\/strong> The role of social media was criticised during Delhi Riots, Farmer Protests, etc.\n<ul>\n<li>Further a lot of <strong>fake news<\/strong> were doing errands on such platforms due to lack of accountability.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Double Standards as per Country and Government:<\/strong> In the past, social media has shown differential treatment for Europe and Asian Countries.\n<ul>\n<li>Further, event based bias was also seen in a few cases.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Increasing Digital Crimes:<\/strong> Radicalisation, Terrorist recruitment, Digital hacking, Child pornography and other henious crimes, etc are increasing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Criticism<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Unconstitutional:<\/strong> It violated <strong>Article 19(1)(a)<\/strong> (freedom of speech and expression).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Over Regulation:<\/strong> This administrative regulation on digital news media would make it virtually impossible for small or medium-sized publishers, such as the petitioner, to function\n<ul>\n<li>For the IT Act to be used as a content control mechanism, especially through exercise of powers aimed at intermediaries which do not originally publish content, seems to be an overreach of executive power.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Curb Freedom of Artistic Expressions:<\/strong> The present norms put a curb on the Freedom to Artistic Expressions under Article 19.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Selective targeting:<\/strong> It has also been alleged that the rules will be more misused than for real regulation.\n<ul>\n<li>There are instances when the government tried to curb a certain Anti- Government Agendas while ignoring populist fake news.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rising Intolerance and Populist measure:<\/strong> The uproar over series like Tandav and AIB Roast are just a reflection of lack of tolerance.\n<ul>\n<li>Most arguments like abusive language, against the cultural ethos are either vague or irrelevant as they often depict day to day life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Way Ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Independent Authority to moderate the content: <\/strong>The Independent Authority may be appointed in consultation with the Leader of Opposition and Judiciary to ensure a neutral person for regulating the content.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Judicial Commission to decide the definitions:<\/strong> The definitions should be precisely defined to avoid any controversy in future.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/new-it-rules-kerala-high-court-restrains-centre\/article34039353.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News The Kerala High Court restrained the Centre from taking coercive action against Live Law Media Private Ltd., which owns a legal news portal, for any non-compliance with Part III of the new IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-14324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-gs-2"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1222743current-affairs (1).jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}