Centre eyes new regulation to cover social media users

The Union government is planning to allow the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) to send takedown notices to individual users for their social media posts. Under the IT Rules, 2021, the Ministry could issue such notices only to online news platforms.

In addition, any advisories to social media platforms by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) would, if not complied with, affect the firms’ so-called “safe harbour”, allowing them to be held liable in court for users’ content.

These changes have been put forth in a draft amendment on Monday (March 30, 2026) to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which were amended as recently as February. The IT Ministry said in an explanatory memorandum to Monday’s proposed amendment that the addition of individual user posts to the I&B Ministry was a “clarification of applicability” of those rules to “news and current affairs content hosted by non-publisher users”.

In a statement, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) decried the proposal as a “massive expansion of unconstitutional censorship and regulatory power”.

The Ministry said these “amendments are clarificatory and procedural in nature and are intended to improve legal certainty, strengthen enforceability of Ministry directions, and ensure effective oversight of intermediary-hosted content, particularly news and current affairs”.

The Internet Freedom Foundation pushed back on that claim, pointing to a key change in the proposal – an inter-departmental committee (IDC) to hear appeals against complaint outcomes. IFF says it broadens the IDC mandate. “The original Rule 14(2) required the IDC to hear “complaints regarding violation or contravention of the Code of Ethics.” The amended version removes this requirement entirely,” IFF said in its statement. “The IDC now hears: (a) grievances arising from decisions at level I or II; or (b) “matters” referred to by the Ministry,” it said.

The government uses Section 79 of the IT Act, under which the IT Rules were notified, to warn social media platforms that content under a takedown notice, if retained, would lead to the loss of their safe harbour. Since February’s amendment abruptly changed takedown timelines to retain safe harbour to two-three hours from 24-36 hours, Meta has been taking down more posts and accounts under such notices. Blocking orders that are more legally binding are issued under Section 69A.

The Foundation accused the government of trying to sidestep orders by the Madras and Bombay High Courts, which have stayed certain parts of the IT Rules. “The cumulative effect of the amendments to Rules 8 and 14 is to reconstruct the oversight machinery that the Bombay and Madras High Courts found constitutionally suspect, in a form designed to evade the existing interim orders,” IFF said.

Several notices

The government has been increasingly issuing broad takedown orders for content online in the past few weeks against high-profile posts and accounts that are anti-establishment, as well as content that mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Asked about the recent spurt in takedowns, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told The Hindu at a press interaction on Monday that “AI-generated deepfakes” and “fake news” were being targeted.

The content targeted by government takedown notices over the last few weeks include animations featuring Mr. Modi by The Wire, several posts on X criticising or mocking the government, and AI-generated satirical videos by the Congress. 

Over the weekend, the takedown orders continued: Molitics, an independent news and commentary outlet with over seven lakh subscribers on YouTube, had its entire Facebook page blocked in India. Mohammed Zubair, a co-founder of the fact-checking site Alt News, had a post contextualising a communal incident in West Bengal removed, even as the post he was responding to, by West Bengal’s BJP Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, remained online.