India planning to bring a twist to its content regulation

As per news reports, India is planning to amend proposed rules for policing digital content and the toughest measures apply only to big social media firms which will give relief to other tech players fearful of the new regulations.

As per the original proposal, all the tech players along with Facebook , Twitter and WhatsApp need to deploy automated tools to check for unlawful content and to appoint an officer for "24x7" coordination with law enforcement.

These rules are in line with India's broader efforts to tackle disinformation and "fake news". Since 2017, rumour-mongering on social media has been blamed for mob attacks that killed 30 people across the country.

But the draft proposals, called "intermediary guidelines" when they were released in December 2018, could have applied to a broad range of technology firms including e-commerce players, cloud storage providers and telecoms companies.

Now a two tier system is being considered by IT ministry of India. The news report also reveals that the systems with stricter rules similar to the original proposals will be applicable only to social media companies.

It further added that having two separate layers of rules would mean that big social media companies such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Chinese video app TikTok would continue to face stricter regulation, but technology firms such as Amazon.com could breathe easier.