'No safe harbour if law violated': Government's message to Meta on content moderation

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

47% : The government had sought details of the company's safeguards and content moderation mechanisms, while stressing that material identified as unlawful or harmful should not continue to be recommended.The government is separately examining the issue of WhatsApp usernames from an industry-wide perspective, rather than treating it as an issue specific to Meta.Sources said the Centre would continue to monitor the matter across messaging platforms.The broader discussions have covered Meta's compliance with Indian law, its content policies, moderation systems and safeguards.The government has previously questioned the company's eligibility for safe-harbour protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, which provides intermediaries protection from liability for third-party content subject to specified conditions.Government sources said similar debates over platform regulation have emerged in Western liberal democracies as well, underlining that the challenge is not unique to India.At the same time, officials stressed that cultural and social contexts differ between countries and that reasonable restrictions on freedom of speech remain constitutionally applicable in India.The latest discussions follow several rounds of engagement between Meta's global team and the ministry of electronics and information technology over CSAM, deepfakes, bots, synthetic content, recommendation algorithms and compliance with Indian laws.The government has maintained that it is not seeking a wholesale overhaul of Meta's algorithms, but wants the company's platforms and moderation mechanisms to operate in accordance with Indian law and account adequately for the country's linguistic and cultural context.

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