India has social media giants Twitter and Facebook in its crosshairs over guidelines laid out by the government over moderation on their platforms.
The pair have until 26th May to get their houses in order, which includes (among other things) opening an office in India and appointing a grievance officer, a chief compliance officer, and a nodal contact person. These individuals, incidentally, need to be reachable on a 24-hour basis.
India draws a line in the sand
The guidelines were laid out in a 30-page document in February of this year, in which the government essentially tasked the likes of Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms with taking down unlawful content within 24 hours of a request being made and delivering a complete report in 15 days after that.
The regulations kicked in immediately for smaller companies, but big tech was given a few months grace period.
The deadline for compliance is tomorrow and according to a report on TechRadar the likes of Facebook and Twitter will be held criminally liable if some content deemed illegal is shared over their platform.
This isn’t the first time this month that social media has found itself in hot water in India. The government of that country recently put Facebook on notice about the new Privacy Policy on WhatsApp.
The country’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) said that should the chat app fail to withdraw the policy by 25th May of this year, the government will take legal action. That would be today then.