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Social Media Regulations and Digitally Empowered Women

With a basket of misinformation, comes a wave of rumours. And this happened at a large scale in the past week. Social Media has become a huge part of our lives in the pandemic. This article talks about the legal tussle going on in between the social media platforms and the central government. After understanding the crux of the situation, we will see how it gave a sense of purpose to the rural women in this pandemic, and why fidgeting with it can disrupt the digital era, especially the women across all social and economic backgrounds.

Social Media Platforms vs the Indian state-

On February 25, the social media platforms were asked by the Indian government to comply with the new IT rules. Except for Koo, no other company agreed to do the same and the deadline arrived. With great power comes great responsibility, so the blurry line between abusing the power and exercising the rights should not be overlooked. Based on that, a need was felt for stringent rules for any form of communication of information via intermediaries(or the platforms). The Intermediary Guidelines and the Digital Ethics Code was supposed to come from May 26.

The government replaced the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines, 2011 rules with that of the IT (intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The earlier sets of rules were only applicable to intermediaries. The new rules broadened the area of intermediary oversight, bringing online news content and Over-The-Top ("OTT") platforms under its purview.

What are the Rules?

(i) Providing users, the privacy policy, rules and regulations, and terms and conditions for using its services. The policy must provide that the user is prohibited from hosting, displaying, uploading, modifying, publishing, transmitting, storing, updating, or sharing any information that is contrary to societal norms, immoral, defamatory to the general public or misleads the general public.

(ii) Upon a court or government order, blocking access to illegal information within 36 hours.

(iii) The intermediary shall not publish any information that is against the interests, unity, integrity, and sovereignty of the state.

(iv) Within 24 hours of receiving a complaint, the intermediary shall take all appropriate steps to disable access to material that is non-consensual and sexual in nature.

(v) Identification of the First Originator of Information.

(vi) After a user's registration has been canceled or withdrawn, the information gathered for registration should be stored180 days.

(vii) A grievance Officer to oversee victim complaints must be appointed and his information should be published on the intermediary's website or application.

(viii) Mandatorily publishing a Monthly Compliance Report containing details of complaints received and action taken thereon.

(ix) As per the rules, the intermediaries must appoint a Chief Compliance Officer, a Nodal Contact Person, and a Resident Grievance Officer.

(x) Additionally, for social media intermediaries, there is an additional provision for 'Voluntary User Verification.’

(xi) Significant Social Media Intermediary "shall endeavor to deploy" technology-based measures such as automated tools or other frameworks for proactively identifying any information that depicts any act or stimulation, whether explicit or implied with regards to rape, child sexual abuse or conduct and information identical to the content that has been removed/disabled.

Ban rumours

As except for Koo, no platform has agreed on complying with the rules, they have requested for a 6 month extension so that they can work on the compliance without compromising the privacy of the users. But, the noncompliance did not cause a ban of social media.

Digital empowerment of rural women-

The country can start crumbling down, just like in the times of emergency years in 1978, if the digital lifeline or social media is choked. The lockdown has taught them to survive with the help of digital retailing. Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) is a membership-based organization that seeks to improve the lives and livelihoods of women who work in the informal sector, including seamstresses, artisans, vendors, and small and marginal farmers. Women who got trained from SEWA eventually learned to share photographs of their products online, create Whatsapp groups of customers, and enable digital payments for purchases, make cashless payments through Paytm, the BHIM App and Google Pay rather than meeting people, handling cash and risking infections.

There has been a rise in retail online shopping in the pandemic. Women are seen conducting small business from the comfort of their homes. In place of physical shops, they have Facebook or WhatsApp groups in which they display the products for sale. The admin of the groups works like the landlords of these online shops and they charge commissions based on the “Lives” they conduct. This spans across all economic and social classes. There has been a drastic fall in inequality of opportunities as social media cannot and does not discriminate between rich or poor, rural or urban, male or female.

Although the social media platforms to stay irrelevant and uninvested in Indian Politics are of national importance, the blurry line needs to be well defined by all the parties, and a practical solution needs to be invented. Choking the digital space with curbs can only make things worse for the country. This digitalization makes the women of India hopeful and resourceful. This is the time we support and stand by our upcoming entrepreneurs.

(Adv Vedika Chaubey can be reached at vedikachaubey@gmail.com)