What Is The Safe Harbor? The US And India’s Attempt To Keep Social Media Giants In Check

The influence of social media undoubtedly dominates the world. Huge social media companies not only entertain the populace but also influence many of their life choices and perceptions, including lifestyle choices, political preferences, and behavior. The downsides of the same include adverse effects seen in areas of illegal and abusive conduct, youth mental health, algorithm discrimination, and more.

Amid this growing concern about the influence of social media companies, countries like the United States and India have come forward to take firm steps to keep a check on their influence. The United States has recognized six key principles to oversee the powers of the social media giants in check. The areas of focus range from privacy, competition, illegal and abusive conduct, misinformation, and disinformation, youth mental health, lack of transparency, and algorithm discrimination.

These principles are in accordance with global skepticism surrounding the influence of social media platforms. Nations around the globe are keen to inspect the dominance of these social media platforms.

What Does This Step Lead To?

Greater accountability. The White House expressed regard to the harm caused by tech platforms, “Although tech platforms can help keep us connected, create a vibrant marketplace of ideas, and open up new opportunities for bringing products and services to market, they can also divide us and wreak serious real-world harms,”

The White House also stated that a few dominant Internet platforms make use of their power to  “exclude market entrants, to engage in rent-seeking, and to gather intimate personal information that they can use for their own advantage” Additionally, it said that there should be clear limitations on the collection, use, maintenance, and transfer of personal data. It also expressed its concern about the need to limit targeted advertising.

Comparison Of The Views Of The USA And India On The Immunity Enjoyed By Tech Platforms: The Safe Harbor

The White House has listed a principle among the others to remove special protection available to tech and social media platforms. This protection is available under Section230 of the US Communications Decency Act, 2000, (IT Act). The Act classifies social media platforms as intermediaries. It safeguards them from legal action based on content users post on their platform.

Such regulations provide the benefit of a “safe harbor” to these social media platforms. The main idea of this harbor is that whatever users post on their sites, social media platforms are unable to control the content at the first instance, and thus, the latter should not be held accountable for the same. Moreover, these social media platforms agree to take the objectionable content down when courts or the governments instruct it.

The safe harbor protects the freedom of expression of the users on such platforms. Today, the most convenient and perhaps the most robust medium of communication is offered by these social media platforms, and thus, it is a pivotal platform for free speech and expression in today’s time.

Fundamental reforms, however, have been called for by the White House to Section 230 following the concerns highlighted by experts regarding the “magnitude of illegal and abusive hosted or disseminated by platforms, but for which they are presently protected from being held liable and lack adequate incentive to reasonably address, such as child sexual exploitation, nonconsensual distribution of intimate images of adults, and child exploitation.”

Talking about India, it has notified significant changes to the country’s social media regulations through the Information Technology Rules, 2021, which put great due diligence requirements on huge social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook. It also appointed key personnel to oversee law enforcement requests and user grievances, while also enabling the identification of the first information originator on its platform under some specific conditions, and deploying technology-based measures on a best-effort basis to recognize certain types of content.

Are The Social Media Companies Agreeing Upon The Provisions?

Social media companies have, several times, frowned upon the IT Rules provisions. Popular social media giant, WhatsApp has filed a case against the requirement which instructs the company to trace the first originator of a message.

The reason supported by the IT Rules behind this provision is that the platform may be required to track the originator in case a user has shared child sexual abuse material through WhatsApp.

On the contrary, WhatsApp is concerned with the dilution of encryption security on the platform. This could lead to a compromise on the personal messages of the users.

Further Amendments To The IT Rules In India

In an attempt to make the Internet open, safe and trusted, and accountable, the IT Ministry took a step forward to once again propose amendments to the IT Rules. 

One of the most controversial of these proposals is the formation of government-backed grievance appellate committees. Such committees will have the authority to review content moderation decisions taken by the social media platforms.

The country is moving toward a complete overhaul of its technology policies. There have been high expectations for a replacement of India’s IT Act, 2000, which may be in alignment with net neutrality, data privacy, and algorithmic accountability of social media platforms.