Parliamentary Standing Committee questions the New IT Rules on their legality

Parliamentary Standing Committee questions the New IT Rules on their legality

Various questions were put before the officials regarding the conformity of the rules with that of the legal framework

The Government's decision to come up with the new set of rules to regulate the OTT and social media last month has led to some of the members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology questioning the legality of the new rules.

The government tightened the rule that governs the streaming companies and social media for running their online content. The government announced the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code which will apply to streaming companies like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Zee5, etc., and social media such as Facebook, Whatsapp, etc.

The officials had deposed before the parliamentary panel on "intermediary guidelines in the context of examination of the subject review of functioning of Central Board of Film Certification" which was chaired by Shashi Tharoor.

Various questions were put before the officials. The members asked regarding the conformity of the rules with that of the legal framework. Moreover, they asked regarding the constitution of the regulatory mechanism and questions that why it only consist of the bureaucrats and not the representatives of civil society, judiciary and professionals. They even asked their prior consultation with the stakeholders before bringing the rules.

The officials answered these questions and justified the need to bring such rules as per the changing times and increase in the usage of such platforms by the consumer. The content being brought up by the platforms can affect in various sense and thereby, the rules will help to take down the contentious content quickly. The rules will also require appointing the grievance redressal officer and helping in assisting the investigation. For having effective disclosure of ownership and other information, this rule also helps for setting code for digital publishers of news and current affairs content.

Union IT and Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that the guidelines for intermediaries and ethics code for digital media are designed to curb misuse of social media platforms as well as streaming services and disclose the first originator of the mischievous information and remove, within 24 hours, content depicting nudity or morphed pictures of women.