IT Ministry weighs ending safe harbour for social media platforms | Business News

The emerging view within the government is that social media platforms can no longer be considered passive carriers of information, given their use of sophisticated algorithms to rank, recommend and amplify content, and their ability to moderate posts based on their own community guidelines, which may not always align with Indian laws. Such practices, a section of the government believes, amount to exercising editorial control over content, raising questions about whether these companies should continue to enjoy the same legal protections as traditional intermediaries.

“Intermediaries were supposed to be simply carriers of content, and safe harbour in that sense made sense. When you receive a message from someone, the platform’s only responsibility is to carry that message and deliver it to you without making any changes to it. But with social media platforms deploying complex algorithms to boost engagement and virality, the boundaries have been blurred. They definitely determine what gets shown to users, and are no longer simple carriers of content,” a senior government official said.

The discussions are still at an exploratory stage, and no final decision has been taken on the contours of the proposed changes. To be sure, stripping social media companies of safe harbour would likely require making amendments to the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, which would have to be approved by Parliament.

Queries sent to the IT Ministry, Meta, and Google did not elicit any response until publication.

Behind the move

Safe harbour, provided under Section 79 of the IT Act, is among the most consequential legal protections underpinning the modern internet economy. It broadly protects intermediaries from being held legally responsible for content uploaded by their users, subject to certain conditions, including compliance with prescribed due diligence requirements. This protection has been instrumental in allowing companies such as Meta, Google and X to build massive businesses around user-generated content without assuming the legal liabilities associated with publishing each individual post, video or comment.

Any move to substantially dilute or withdraw the protection for social media companies is likely to face strong opposition from the technology industry and civil society organisations.

Several developments have culminated in the government’s changing thought on safe harbour, including concerns within a section of the establishment that social media algorithms have, on occasion, disproportionately amplified Opposition-led or anti-establishment narratives over official government communication.

The role of Instagram during the students’ protests in July, when the platform emerged as a key vehicle for mobilising online support, is understood to have played a part in these deliberations. The government has been examining how social media platforms determine the reach and visibility of different kinds of content, and whether their recommendation systems can influence public discourse while remaining insulated from legal responsibility for the material they amplify.

The friction between the government and social media companies has intensified in recent months. In July, the IT Ministry summoned Meta’s global policy executives, including its global affairs president Joel Kaplan, after a video uploaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was briefly withheld by Facebook in India during the students’ protests. The government had also raised concerns about the prevalence of deepfakes and the company’s compliance with Indian laws.

The tensions are not limited to Meta. Elon Musk-owned X has challenged the Centre’s online content blocking and takedown framework, including the use of the government’s Sahyog portal to issue removal notices. In September 2025, the Karnataka High Court dismissed X’s challenge to the mechanism, following which the company filed an appeal. The dispute has become emblematic of the widening disagreements between the government and technology platforms over the boundaries of online speech and the state’s authority to regulate it.

The government’s thinking has also received impetus from recent observations by the Supreme Court in the Just Rights for Children Alliance vs S Harish case, where the court raised concerns about social media companies’ failure to adequately prevent the circulation of child sexual exploitation and abuse material.

In its October 15 order, the court observed that Section 79 was inadequate to address persistent regulatory failures, describing the loss of safe harbour as a consequence that was too drastic for routine non-compliance but insufficient to deter violations. It called for a separate framework of proportionate penalties, including monetary fines, while retaining the loss of safe harbour as a last resort for serious violations.

Separately, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, chaired by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, has also pushed for stronger action against social media companies. In August, Dubey warned that Meta could lose its safe harbour protection following the temporary removal of Modi’s video, and said the committee had recommended withdrawing such protections from platforms failing to comply with Indian laws.

Other issues on table

Apart from the review of safe harbour, the government is exploring whether social media and messaging platforms should be required to inform authorities before introducing major product changes that could have implications for user safety.

The proposal draws from the government’s confrontation with WhatsApp earlier this year over its planned username feature, which would allow users to contact one another without revealing their phone numbers. In July, the IT Ministry directed WhatsApp to halt the rollout pending consultations, citing concerns that the feature could facilitate impersonation, phishing and financial fraud.

“The episode has prompted discussions on whether a formal mechanism should be established for platforms to provide advance intimation about potentially consequential changes to their services,” another official said.

A third area under consideration is an overhaul of the existing grievance redressal framework for social media users. The government wants platforms to introduce stronger mechanisms that would empower ordinary users to seek the removal of harmful content, particularly deepfakes, sexually explicit material shared without consent and other forms of non-consensual imagery.

The discussions reflect growing concerns within the government that existing reporting and grievance mechanisms do not sufficiently empower individuals whose images or identities are misused online. The government could direct platforms to be responsive to complaints from affected users, rather than leaving decisions on the removal of such material largely to their internal content moderation processes.