While the increase in internet penetration in India has led to an increase in the number of social media users, it also poses the risk of illegal activities, such as the spread of misinformation, hate speech and cyberbullying, and middlemen are now right. There are no neutral pipelines for Information and data.
Therefore, the question is whether middlemen should be held liable and to what extent they should be prosecuted for illegal content posted by third parties on their platform? Soon, India is expected to come up with rules to regulate social media platforms to reduce the risks for internet consumers. But, should India convert from “they don’t know” to “they should know” standard?
Supratim Chakraborty, Partner, Khaitan & Co. said that entrepreneurs also need to find out whether they come under intermediaries as the definition of the word has also created a problem with some clarity in recent times. While due diligence should be done by intermediaries, Chakraborty is of the view that they are still against it, noting that trace of origin is a problem if companies use end-to-end encryption.
He said social media intermediaries with 5 million registered users should appoint a chief compliance officer, a nodal contact person and a resident grievance officer, and understand Indian sensibilities to build a model around India.
Anoushka Sharda, partner at Khaitan & Co, said the appointment of a compliance officer could also lead to over-censorship as he may be the only person to be held responsible, despite not being a decision maker. Also, a time limit of 24 hours for removing objectionable content may not be practically possible. She added that regulating social media middlemen may not be a perfect solution as technology will always outweigh the law, but hopes that rules will continually evolve to address the issues.
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