May 26, 2021
The Indian government’s threats to ban international social media apps for not complying with new local guidelines are as damaging to the country as they are for these companies.
Today (May 26) is the last day for all social media companies to meet a local regulation in India that was introduced in February and mandates all firms with over five million users to offer traceability of information as well as appoint a grievance officer.
Failing to follow the regulation won’t end in a ban like many clickbait headlines have suggested, but it will result in loss of intermediary status, which means companies like Facebook and Twitter could be criminally liable for any content deemed illegal on their platforms.
WhatsApp Takes Indian Govt To Delhi HC Against New IT Guidelines Facebook-owned WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in the court saying that one of the new guidelines will force WhatsApp to break protection to users
Use code
You re reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Popular messaging platform WhatsApp has knocked the gates of Delhi High Court against the Indian government’s new digital rules that are in place starting Wednesday. According to media reports, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in the court saying that one of the new guidelines will force WhatsApp to break protection to users.
NEW DELHI: Digital activists and experts said that the manner in which the Delhi Police special cell went to “serve a notice” to Twitter offices on Monday was meant to “bully” the company and sends a bad message to tech companies looking to invest in India.
“Neither MEITY nor Delhi Police are empowered by any law to object to such labeling,” technology lawyer Mishi Choudhary told TOI, adding that the government was acting as a bully.
According to Choudhary, the move also sends a bad message to tech companies looking to invest in India. “This sends a message to the world that Digital India is closed for business. Rule of Law no longer applies and every rule in the book can be twisted to control information and settle political scores. As an investor, who wants to risk their money in such a volatile, unpredictable environment,” she added.
May 26, 2021
India has made new and stricter IT rules that require instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp to aid in identifying the ‘originator’ of messages. WhatsApp seeing this as a breach of their users privacy has petitioned in the Delhi High court against this act.
The petition challenges the constitutional validity of rules which will be effective from May 26th. The complaint was filed on 25th.
“Requiring messaging apps to ‘trace’ chats is equivalent to asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp, which would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said.
BCCL
In Brazil, Diego Dzodan Facebook’s vice president for Latin America in 2016 was arrested after refusing to hand over WhatsApp messages that the local authorities alleged had been sent by drug dealers. He was later released with the judge deeming his arrest an ‘unlawful coercion’.
In India, Facebook’s managing director, Ajit Mohan, wasn’t arrested but was named in a petition to the Supreme Court on Delhi Riots in 2020.
And, most recently, Twitter’s offices in New Delhi and Gurgaon were raided as the police looked into the matter of the social media platform’s ‘manipulated media’ tag.