Fighting Platforms and the People, not the Pandemic: #ResignModi and Disinformation Governance in India - an update

Abstract

It is not usually a good sign that you are asked to write a follow-up to a Verfassungsblog post. In late February, we described the travails of Twitter in India, which largely bowed to government pressure to block users and censor hashtags. Now, this fight has become larger. To control social media-driven criticism against its handling of the COVID-19 crisis, the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, can now take advantage of new powers via the Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 (IT Rules 2021). For Big Tech, who have been fending off external regulation globally and consider India as their largest market, this is an acid test. The IT Rules 2021 empower the Modi government to counter disinformation, whose definition seems to have been stretched to include content that portrays the government negatively. The government can override the platforms' agency here and make them toe its line. How platforms react will have a domino effect on users' freedom of expression and right to privacy across the world.