Effective regulation

Rules for social media platforms must be thought through

A draft of The Information Technology Intermediaries Guidelines Amendment Rules, 2018, was issued in December last year by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and put up for public consultation till January 31, 2019. The draft sought to replace the existing rules, framed in 2011, for governing “intermediaries” — a term that includes all information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITeS) platforms and content aggregators including network service providers, internet service providers, search engines, online payment sites, and social media platforms. The draft amendment was formulated to increase the accountability of social media platforms. The new guidelines ensure that