Consultation Paper on Media Law - Social Media - Dear Friends , you may send your opinions to the Law Commission of India on Media Law . Full paper can be found on the website of the Law Commission of India. Part of the paper relating to regulation of social media is extracted below: 1. Social Media and Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 1.1. The ability to disseminate information seamlessly over social media has resulted in a rising need to regulate the content of such information. Section 66A of the IT Act makes it a punishable offence to send messages that are offensiveor false or created for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill-will, through a computer device. Since no guidelines have been laid down for identification of offensive information, the wide amplitude of the provision has often been used for politically motivated arrests. Recently, two professors were arrested in West Bengal for posting a cartoon critiquing a politician. In another incident, two young girls from Maharashtra were arrested – one for posting a Facebook status about the chaotic shut down of Mumbai due to a popular politician’s death and the other for ‘liking’ the status post. Section 66A is currently under challenge for being violative of the freedom of speech and expression. Though no stay on arrests under this provision has been granted, the Supreme Court has held that no person should be arrested for posting objectionable comments online without permission of senior police officials. 1.2. At the same time, social media has often been used as a conduit for instigating ethnic and communal violence such as false rumours online in August 2012 that led to an exodus of North-eastern migrants from South India. In 2013, the Election Commission introduced guidelines to regulate internet campaigns given the vast use of social media by political parties. Though, the Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012 proposed the establishment of a media regulatory authority, the Bill did not get introduced. Under the present Act, the Cyber Appellate Tribunal is empowered to deal with complaints under the Act but is largely confined to cases of fraud and hacking. 1.3. In this context the following issues arise for consideration: 1. Should the existing law be amended to define what constitutes “objectionable content”? 2. Should Section 66A of the IT Act be retained in its present form or should it be modified/ repealed? 3. Is there a need for a regulatory authority with powers to ban/suspend coverage of objectionable material? If yes, should the regulatory authority be self-regulatory or should it have statutory powers?
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 01:46:40 +0000
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