India’s new intermediary liability and digital media laws will harm the internet
Only the largest social media companies <i>will</i> be able to comply with these laws. Assuming the summary isn&#x27;t incorrect, these requirements are incredibly difficult to implement for small companies.<p>Automated Filtering, Social Media User Verification, Traceability of Encrypted Content are all complex on both a technical &amp; practical level. As I understand, setting up a basic mastodon instance or even just an IRC server could be in violation of these rules. (IRC might not count itself but hosting IRC and a web IRC gateway probably is).<p>Some interesting parts (scroll down in the PDF to get the English version):<p>&gt; `social media intermediary‘ means an intermediary which primarily or solely enables online interaction between two or more  users and  allows  them to create, upload, share, disseminate, modify or access information using its services;<p>This means that a lot of this law applies to basically any communication platform. Not just the big ones.<p>&gt; Provided  also  that where  the  first  originator  of  any  information  on  the  computer  resource  of  an intermediary  is  located  outside  the  territory  of  India,  the  first  originator  of  that  information  within  the territory of India shall be deemed to be the first originator of the information for the purpose of this clause.<p>This puts enormous liability on tons of services &amp; businesses. Running a tor relay and many other &#x27;network over a network&#x27; type technologies will become problematic. Forget about running a tor exit node - unless you can just say that this IP is the originator.<p>&gt; where  an  intermediary  collects  information  from  a  user  for  registration  on  the  computer resource,  it  shall  retain  his  information  for  a  period  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  days  after any cancellation or withdrawal of his registration, as the case may be;<p>So now you have to wait 180 days for your information to really be removed. So much for privacy. It&#x27;s also a bit weird in that it is <i>exactly</i> 180 days and not up to or at least which makes it a bit confusing in what its goal is.<p>&gt; The  intermediary  shall  prominently publish on its website,mobile based application or both, as the case may be, the name of the Grievance Officer and his contact details as well as mechanism by which a user or a victim may  make  complaint  against  violation  of  the  provisions  of  this  rule  or  any  other  matters pertaining to the computer resources made available by it, and the Grievance Officer shall [...]<p>So you&#x27;ll need about 3-5 employees just for hosting a image board, etc.<p>&gt; [Section 4] [...] appoint  a  nodal  contact  person  for  24x7  coordination  with  law  enforcement  agencies  and officers  to  ensure  compliance  to  their  orders  or  requisitions  made  in  accordance  with  the provisions of law or rules made thereunder.<p>&gt; [Section 6] The Ministry may by order, for reasons to be recorded in writing, require any intermediary, which is not a significant social media intermediary, to comply with all or any of the obligations mentioned under rule 4, if the services of that intermediary permits the publication or transmission of information in a manner that may create a material risk of harm to the sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order.<p>So the government can basically force any communication platform&#x2F;service to have a 24&#x2F;7 contact&#x2F;staff for cooperating with law enforcement. Essentially, any low moderation platform could be forced overnight to higher additional staff or more likely; shut down since it would be no longer economical or worthwhile to operate.