It was a day of anticipation and high drama, but ultimately it remained, thankfully so, a Twitter hashtag war —- #BanTwitter vs. #ISuportTwitter — with parleys happening behind the scene and a compromise formula being attempted a day after Delhi Police visited (closed) Twitter India offices to serve a notice for refusing to remove ‘manipulated media’ tags from certain tweets made by politicians and also to ascertain facts about a ‘toolkit’ that had cooked a proverbial storm in the tea cup.

The three-month deadline to be Indian law-compliant for infotech and digital companies, including social media and OTT platforms, expired May 25.

While , according to some media reports, Facebook said it was looking to comply with the new digital rules that were announced on February 25, 2021 and are slated to come into effect from today, others stated that an Indian chamber of commerce and an Indo-American business advocacy body had written to the Indian federal government highlighting that action against global companies could have negative impact on bilateral and economic relations that the country has with other nations.

A Facebook spokesperson told The Hindu  newspaper on Tuesday, “We aim to comply with the provisions of the IT rules and continue to discuss a few of the issues which need more engagement with the government. Pursuant to the IT Rules, we are working to implement operational processes and improve efficiencies. Facebook remains committed to people’s ability to freely and safely express themselves on our platform.”

Facebook has invested heavily into what is considered the world’s largest consumer market, including a multi-million dollar investment in telco Reliance Jio for a minority equity stake.

The Electronics and IT Ministry (Meity) sources, according to a PTI report, said that appointment of a grievance officer would be a key requirement from day-one of rules coming into effect, given the importance of public interface for complaints, and need for an acknowledgement system for requests. Non-compliance with rules would result in these social media companies losing their intermediary status that provides them exemptions from liabilities for any third-party information and data hosted by them.

The Hindu also reported that the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and the US-India Business Council (USIBC) have written to the government for up to a one-year compliance window, particularly in the view of COVID-19.

On February 25, 2021, the Indian government announced sweeping guidelines for SM and OTT platforms, and digital news publishers that in a nutshell could be said to have empowered self-regulation under government oversight. The guidelines seek to put an end to a free run of edgy, highly political and sexual content on streaming services, apart from trying to check spread of misinformation and fake news on SM and on the Internet from within and outside the country emphasizing on identification of  `first originator’ of such messages on SM platforms.

All the Internet intermediaries were given three months time to be fully compliant with the new rules. The deadline ended on May 25, 2021 and, according to some media reports, various companies were in different stages of compliance — as is evident from FB’s statement to the media.

The USIBC has pointed out that the IT Rules stipulated that non-compliance by an intermediary would extend the possibility of imposing personal criminal liability on employees of intermediaries (such as the chief compliance officer of a significant social media intermediary), The Hindu said.

 “This possibility of imposition of criminal liability of the employees of an intermediary is at odds with modern corporate criminal liability jurisprudence, which is leaning towards replacing criminal liability with monetary penalties, in the interests of ease of doing business and better enforcement of laws,” USIBC said in its letter to the Indian government.

However, the Meity in the past has been at pains allaying fears that appointment of Indian compliance officers in global companies would not necessarily mean criminalizing any offense and such people need not necessarily be prosecuted under local laws. An earlier report by Indianbroadcastingworld on the issue could be read here: http://www.indianbroadcastingworld.com/meity-working-on-intermediary-sops-under-new-digital-norms/.

But such assurances have failed to cut much ice. The CII noted: “The IT Rules, 2021 impose certain obligations that are novel, for instance, with respect to expansion of the power to block content and the grounds on which such content can be blocked”.

It added that the rules also prescribed brief timelines to comply with orders and requests from the government and users for takedown, respond to information requests etc., which may not be sufficient given the volume of requests and the scope of the actions to be carried out by entities. “It is our submission that the scope of such requests should be limited to a few Central government agencies only,” the CII recommended.

Future Scenario: So what could the future hold for the Internet players in India?

Scenario 1:The government extends the time for compliance. Given the circumstances and the high stakes involved, this looks unlikely, but not ruled out.

Scenario 2:The Internet companies continue operations in India — though some say non-compliance will make them lose some legal protection they get as intermediaries and open them to a deluge of complaints, including police complaints in far-flung places in India.

But this continuance of operations of India could be categorized as rules-non-compliant companies and some of the brave ones move the court seeking legal relief, which by default would result in some additional time gained to iron out wrinkles.

However, moving the courts could also mean antagonizing a sovereign government and closing most of the doors for concessions and compromise with the authorities.

Still, some digital news publishers have moved the courts over a month back describing the new IT rules ultra vires. The cases are pending in the courts.

As one such Internet company said: “It’s a wait and watch game. Let’s see the next move of the  Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) after the deadline expiry. We want to be fully compliant, but we need some additional time.”

‘Truth Remains Unafraid’: Meanwhile, a senior leader of India’s main opposition, the Congress Party, criticized the government for trying to send messages to global companies by having police visit their offices.

“Truth remains unafraid,” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday after the Delhi Police sent a notice to Twitter India in connection with the probe into a complaint about the alleged ‘COVID toolkit’, Press Trust of India said in a dispatch from New Delhi.

After two police teams descended on Twitter’s offices in Delhi and Gurgaon, the Congress had alleged that the “cowardly raid” on the microblogging site’s offices by the Delhi Police “exposes lame duck attempts” to hide a “fraudulent toolkit” by BJP leaders.

Using the hashtag ‘Toolkit’, Gandhi tweeted, “Truth remains unafraid.”