The government wants veto on social media takedowns

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Editor's note: It has been a little over a year since the central government introduced the controversial Information Technologies Rules of 2021. The rules that were supposed to govern online media—news, video and social (including private messaging)—have drawn flak from enough companies in the past year, seen challenges in multiple courts and been partially stayed as well.  Now, the government has proposed an amendment to these rules, one where it would be the final authority on accounts or posts taken down by social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.  Under the proposed changes, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology wants to form one or more grievance appellate committees that will hear appeals from users who have had their accounts or posts taken down within 30 days. These committees will appoint a chairperson and draw members from the government of India. The government has sought comments on these changes from the social media companies, following which there will be a public consultation meeting. These are the same rules that we got a look at last week when MeitY published a similar …