Will Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp be banned in India? Quicky Tech

 Your social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Signal and other messaging apps. OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime and digital news might go through significant and drastic changes, because the government has passed new IT rules that have been very controversial. 

• What are these IT rules exactly?
• And how will it affect you?
•  And why has it been subject to such controversy?

 Let's find out in today's article. These rules have been named intermediaries. Basically, it focuses on intermediaries. What are intermediaries? Suppose there is a toothpaste manufacturing company that delivers its product to a local store. and when you want to buy the toothpaste, you go to the local store.

 The local shop or the shopkeeper has neither made the toothpaste and nor are they using it. They’re just taking the toothpaste from the company and selling it to you. In such cases, that store is an intermediary. A third party that enables the execution of the deal between two parties. It is because of them that there is a deal between the two parties. Who are the other intermediaries? 

Facebook: through which you can talk with your friends. Facebook is an intermediary here. Legally speaking, the intermediaries have some immunities. In 2008, there was a very famous case. A student of IIT had put an obscene MMS on sale on baazi.com.

 From the outside, it wasn't apparent that it was an MMS video. Until you click on it. When someone pointed it out, baazi.com removed it from their website. But the crime branch of the Delhi Police, took cognizance of this matter and filed a charge-sheet against the IIT's student who listed the video on the website. 

• Additionally, another charge-sheet was filed and the owner of the baazi.com website was accused. In this case, think about it, friends, was it right to blame the website? Because the website owner did not even know that it was an objectionable content and when they did find out, they removed it. Regardless, the website is still considered an accused.

•  Similarly, if your local shopkeeper sells a toothpaste which has some harmful chemicals, but the shopkeeper has no idea that the toothpaste has any deficiencies or that harmful chemicals are in the product. Should the police arrest the local shopkeeper? Or should the blame be solely on the toothpaste manufacturing company? Logically, the answer is quite obvious. The courts decided on this as well.

 And in the case of baazi.com, the court said that the owner of the website cannot be blamed. And it was unfair to arrest the owner in that case. And for this reason, the intermediaries have some immunities. That it is not the fault of the platform if a user puts some objectionable content on it. It is the sole responsibility of the user. If we talk about the new social media rules that the government has passed recently.

According to these rules, the immunities that these intermediaries had has been removed to quite an extent. What are these rules exactly? 

Let's see their main provisions. The government has issued these rules by publishing them in the Official Gazette. It is divided into three parts:

•  Part 1 has the definitions and terms of these Intermediaries Rules.
•  Part 2 focuses on social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Signal, Telegram, Twitter.
•  Part 3 is focused on OTT platforms and digital news. Starting with the social media platforms, the government has given three months to appoint a Chief Compliance Officer, a Nodal Contact Person, and a Resident Grievance Officer.

 The Chief Compliance Officer will basically ensure that these new IT rules are followed by these social media platforms. 

The Nodal Contact Person will be 24*7 in coordination with the law enforcement agencies. The Residence Grievance Officer will be responsible for taking the users' complaints concerning these rules. The responsibility of the grievance officer will be to acknowledge complaints within 24 hours and resolve them within a timeline of 15 days.

 Some experts believe that because of these requirements the tax liability of these social media platforms will increase. And many small innovative platforms will be discouraged to continue in India. According to these new rules, every year these intermediaries will have to send reminders to the users at least once, that if they do anything illegal, their account will be deleted. 

Additionally, These intermediaries will have to publish a monthly compliance report enumerating the complaints received and those on which action was taken also the content of the complaint on which action was taken. 

• The data retention period has been doubled to 6 months for "investigative purposes." This means that if you make an account on social media platforms and subsequently, delete them, even then the social media platforms will keep your data for the next 6 months. Because the government is permitting them to do so. 

• In fact, the government is telling them to do so. Don't forget that in our country there is no robust data protection law. Which data do social media platforms take? Which would they store for 6 months? We will have no idea. But the scariest thing in these rules is that these intermediaries will have to enable tracing of the originator of information on their platform if required by the court of competent jurisdiction or competent authority.

 It means that when the government wants, these platforms will have to provide the information of the first originator. Suppose if there is a widely spread WhatsApp forward, who wrote the WhatsApp forward and where it originated from, this information will have to be given by the social media platforms to the government, if they ask for it.

•  Same with Facebook posts or Twitter accounts. Technically, it is not possible to do this in WhatsApp and Signal, because WhatsApp and Signal have end-to-end encryption. They themselves don't know the content and origin of the messages. 

• So if the new rules have to be complied with, apps like WhatsApp and Signal, they are told to breach their end-to-end encryption. And this is a threat to your privacy , because of the end-to-end encryption, third parties cannot read your messages.

 If the end-to-end encryption is removed, it becomes possible for any third party to read your messages easily. The WhatsApp controversy that we talked about earlier, that WhatsApp was bringing its new privacy policy, this, IT Rules, will be 10X more dangerous for your privacy than that.

•  In my opinion, apps like Signal and Telegram will deny following these and the government may permanently ban them from functioning in India. Various reasons have been given in the new Rules which the government may use to enforce action from these social media platforms. Some reasons are very obvious, like sexual content being posted or child abuse is being posted.

•  But few reasons as such that if some content is against 'public order.' It is such a broad term that if the government declares that showing farmers protest will be against public order or criticising the government is also against public order, Using broad terms might be misused very easily by the government.

•  You might remember, some months ago, the government has asked Twitter to ban some Twitter accounts in India. Twitter banned some of them but refused to ban the others because there wasn't a legit reason behind banning them. Those were the accounts that were starting to criticise the government and supporting the farmers' protest. 

The Government wanted to ban those accounts because of these reasons only. Twitter refused to do this. Some experts also believe that the new rules brought by the government now is to force companies like Twitter into taking action. If now Twitter refuses to ban the accounts, the government can bring legal consequences against Twitter.

 

On the other hand regarding the digital news and OTT platforms, as I explained in the previous video, the devastating impact that regulating OTT and digital news can lead to on the democracy of our country and our freedom. These new rules are trying to do exactly that. Trying to regulate them. 

• There are some good things about these new rules such as the OTT platforms have been told to self-classify their content into 5 age categories: U, 7+, 13+, 16+, and A category. Which, I believe, is a good thing. When you go to watch any content on Netflix or Amazon Prime, you should know how age-appropriate it is. Parental locks have been introduced. Age verification mechanism has also been introduced. But the problematic parts is that these OTT platforms and digital news are being told that they have to follow the Code of Ethics. 

• As per which they cannot put up any content which is against the sovereignty and integrity of the country endangers the security of the states; which is threat to security of the country which is detrimental to India's friendly relations with foreign countries or any such content which incites violence. There are no problems with all these.

 It is justified that no content should be made that goes against the country or incites violence, But in the end, they added another phrase "or any content which disturbs public order." What is this public order? It's determined by the government. Whatever the government thinks is justified will be labelled as a content disturbing public order. This, again, is a very broad term inserted in the Rules, that has a significant chance of being misused. 

Additionally, in the Code of Ethics it is also written that they must take into consideration India's multi-racial and muti-religious context and exercise due caution and discretion while featuring activities practices, views, or beliefs of any racial or religious groups. We all know how offended people have been about every little thing. Whatever the content is, some group or the other is offended by it.

•  Lastly, another dangerous point in the new Rules, is the Emergency Blocking Power given to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. In those cases where "no delay is acceptable." Which are the cases where no delay is acceptable? It is not defined. It's up to them to label the cases where no delay would be acceptable. And the content will be blocked instantly on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp. It's their decision.

•  Many experts have pointed out that these new rules will destroy the foundation of democracy in our country. Just imagine, to block the accounts and to decide which content is wrong and which is right, which goes against any religion or incites violence, Whose duty is it? It is our Judiciary's duty. It is the duty of our third pillar not of the executive. Today, if anyone has an issue with these things, if they believe that any content really incites violence, they can easily complain about it in the courts. 

There are existing rules for it. What new problems did the government see that they had to interfere and label themselves as the competent authority to decide which content is acceptable and which isn't? What's the use of the courts in these cases then? Why are there four pillars of democracy then?

 Remove them!! Let there be only one pillar when they want to control the media themselves ignore the judiciary and decide everything themselves then what is the need for this democratic structure? The point here is that governments are made up of political parties. And political parties are always biased. They do not let the rules be applied fairly. 

• See for yourself. In several states the criminal cases on goons of the ruling party, are dismissed instantly. There are also cases where the Chief Minister of the ruling party are dismissing the cases against them. The application of rules is different for the ruling party and the other people.

•  No matter how violent they are, the same rules will never apply to them. This is the reason for the existence of the third pillar: the judiciary. Whose duty is to keep the other pillars in check. So that the system of checks and balances is maintained. 

Talking about solutions, the ideal solution would be that the courts declare these new rules null and void because it is against democracy and against our Constitution. But if this does not happen, or however long it takes for it to happen, how can you protect your privacy meanwhile? 

You have to remember friends that personally, the "First Originator" rule is the most dangerous. To protect your privacy it is important to protect your IP address first. Which will hide your location. You can do this by using a VPN. If you only want to access some blocked content, any free VPN will suffice. You'll find several free VPNs online. But if you want to protect your privacy, paid VPN would be more secure and private. And in my opinion, the best VPN app is the NordVPN. Using NordVPN you can spoof your location through several countries and access content from there. 

• It provides high speeds and works on all devices be it phones, desktops, laptops It is so strong that even the Chinese government has not been able to block it yet. It hasn't been able to ban this VPN, because NordVPN always comes with ways to bypass the government. Because NordVPN sponsored this video, there is a special discount for you. Go to nordvpn.com/dhruv.

• Do check it out. There is a free trial and a moneyback guarantee as well. The second solution I want to prepare you for is in case apps like WhatsApp and Signal remove the end-to-end encryption. If Signal does not remove the end-to-end encryption and is banned from India even then you can use it through NordVPN. 

• But suppose if WhatsApp agrees to comply with the Indian Government and removes the end-to-end encryption, in such cases, they can use your phone numbers to reach you. So to keep your number private will protect your identity and privacy. Your identity is linked with your phone number.

•  To break this link, buy an international sim card if you have access to it. Don't use Indian SIM cards. If you buy a SIM card from some other country, this link will be broken. For those of you who cannot travel outside, I have a suggestion for you. You can use a VoIP number for WhatsApp from the internet. These are such international phone numbers that you can access and buy through the internet itself. 

There are many websites for this like the RingCentral or you can search VoIP number on Google and get many options for this. So basically there are two things, your phone number and your IP address. If you can protect these then your identity will remain private. I'm telling you these things because I strongly believe in the Right to Privacy. In which our Supreme Court believes as well.

 I strongly believe what the government is doing is not right. It goes against your privacy and our democracy. If the government is really interested in working for the citizens, then the government should bring in a Data Privacy Law first. So that your data is protected. Instead of increasing the chances of having the data leaked and breaking the end-to-end encryptions. 

I hope you found this article informative. Please, share it with your friends and family because all of us may need it in future. Let's meet in the next article. Thank you very much. 

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