India Tells Social Media Firms to Stop Lectures On Freedom of Speech

20 Jun, 2021 15:38 IST|Sakshi Post

The fight between the Indian government and social media platform seems to be continuing. On Saturday, Union Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked these platforms to not give lectures on freedom of speech. Do not lecture India on democracy and freedom of speech, said the Minister. He further added that these social media platforms must work according to the law.

Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and others earn high profits from India, so if they would like to continue doing so, they must operate according to the Indian constitution and follow Indian law. The Union IT minister termed these platforms as the ‘profit making’ firms.

Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was attending a lecture on the topic 'Social Media & Social Security' and 'Criminal Justice System Reforms: An Unfinished Agenda' which was organized by the Symbiosis International University. While speaking at the event, he explained the new IT rules and guidelines. He shared that these guidelines talk about the use of social media and how it is abused. The platforms are misused to propagate one’s own agenda.

The new guidelines given to the social media platforms were actually issued on February 25. The government gave three months for the platforms to comply. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter and others must be more responsible. In case of a controversial post, they must take action in removing it and also tracking the origin of such a message.

Any social media platform, which has more than 5 million users in India, comes under the ambit of the IT rules. The main requirement of the rule is that social media platforms have to appoint a resident grievance officer who is from India as part of a larger grievance redressal mechanism.

After a lot of drama and discussion, the social media platform, Twitter finally decided to give in and comply with all the IT rules set by the Indian government. They will appoint a Chief Compliance Officer and also provide further information about their plan.

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