The Centre is mulling over cutting further to reduce the 2-3 hour deadline for taking down content on social media to just one hour, according to a report.
The government had last month instructed the removal of objectionable and fake content from social media platforms with a deadline of 2-3 hours, however, in order to remove the content way more quickly, the Centre is exploring taking down the content within an hour’s deadline. According to a report by The Indian Express, a senior official on the condition of anonymity has informed that the talks or discussions to reduce the 2-3 hour deadline to just one hour to remove content from social media are in the initial stage. The government is holding discussions on whether the deadline should be further tightened or not. As per the report, it will also depend on how well or effectively the social media companies were adhering to the existing guideline of removing any objectionable or fake social media content. Back in February, the Information Technology Ministry made amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. One of the key takeaways from the February amendment was that the government drastically reduced the deadline given to remove online content from social media from 24-36 hours to 2-3 hours. The existing (2-3 hour) deadline is already the shortest one in the world as per executives.
