India toughens up on Big Tech with new rules

India has followed suit with the likes of Australia, Europe and UK in toughening up laws towards Big Tech – Google, Facebook and Amazon. These companies, having  invested billions of dollars over the years, see India as a crucial growth engine and market for the future.

In February, the Indian government had implemented sweeping reforms that would hold social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and others more accountable to legal requests. They would be required to take down content deemed “unlawful” by the government. And messaging service providers would be required to identify original posters of certain messages, which could mean breaking end-to-end encryption promised to users.

Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at Tufts University’s The Fletcher School, told CNBC that the Indian government has become less accommodative over the years. He explained that a big driver is the rise of India’s homegrown platforms such as Reliance Jio, which “benefits from the government taking a more aggressive stance on the US tech companies as Jio looks to develop its own apps and services.

“Other reasons include the government’s political ambitions, such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push for Atmanirbhar (self-reliance) and appeasing the Hindu religious right,” Chakravorti said. “The landmark “Make in India” policy, which is aimed at reviving India’s manufacturing sector through higher domestic and foreign participation is another factor.”

Chakravorti believes the government increasingly wants to control the media narratives across the country. “While traditional media is easier to control, social media being user generated and amplified is harder; so it is easy to see why the government wants to exert greater control over the social media companies and set very strong content moderation rules.”

Apar Gupta, Executive Director at the Internet Freedom Foundation, told CNBC that regulatory scrutiny has increased in recent years around data protection, privacy, election interference and disinformation. “Some of the newer rules have been criticized by digital rights activists and technologists for being too focused on the political objectives of government in terms of having a greater level of power over social media companies,” he said. “They should instead be serving user interests of privacy, free expression, and a safe online environment.”

Urvashi Aneja, an associate fellow at Chatham House and a founding director at Tandem Research, believes social networks are shaping India’s civic space but there are no mechanisms in place to hold them accountable for the content on their platforms that are not limited by jurisdictional issues. “And so you, as a result of that, perhaps you see some of this current flexing right now, which is certainly excessive and in the long run, likely to be detrimental to civil liberties.”

Gupta pointed out that the conditions specified in the new IT rules go beyond “ordinary post notification takedowns and an ordinary level of due diligence”. He agreed that changes are needed for social media companies in India to operate in a more transparent and accountable manner in areas such as election disinformation on platforms and data breaches.

In early February this year, India had rebuked Twitter for not promptly complying with orders to take down certain content the government alleged were spreading misinformation about farmers protesting new agricultural reforms.