Santosh Yadav, Ph.D.

I want to clarify something about this article @apar1984 and I wrote: An infrastructure for mass censorship is already in place, in India, and the new rules expand it. We're seeing mass censorship of accounts and posts on X, Instagram and Facebook, because of this infrastructure. This infrastructure: 1. Operates with speed: - blocking of posts has to be executed in 3 hours (govt is considering 1 hour), which means there's no scope for challenging them. This is the shortest takedown timeline in the world. Every order is an emergency order. - When platforms get 100 at a time, which happens, they act first, think never, and censor always. Impact: If someone was censored and can't understand why, this is why. No one has time to think. 2. Scale...Scope has expanded uncontested: - The reasons for which speech and posts can be taken down keeps expanding. New rules expand government powers to tweets like this one. - News websites and platforms are covered under IT Rules (illegally) - Streaming platforms are covered under the IT Rules (illegally) Impact: more types of speech is already being censored...satire, journalism, or political criticism 3. Operates without challenge, in two ways: - When you get 160 takedown orders a day (as X disclosed to a court) how many will you challenge? - Platforms don't want to react because they can lose market access in India. They're faced with unrelenting pressure from regulators, and basically choosing which hill to die on. Us being censored is not their problem. - Rules are changing frequently: 7 amendments to IT Rules since Feb 2021. By the time courts nullify one rule (and they don't always do this), new rules come up. How often will people go to court? 4. Ordering takedowns has been decentralised: - The (illegal) Sahyog portal, which is used for takedowns, is a hotline from government bodies to platforms. Thirty-three states, seven central agencies, and seventy-two companies are onboarded. 5. There is no transparency hence no accountability: - Users receive no notice. censorship orders are not provided on request. - blocking orders and the meetings of the committee that reviews them are protected by secrecy. - RTI's are not responded to. - Consultation responses are not public. 6. Government is seeking personal data of social media users using Sections 70B, 69 and 75 of the IT Act. This will lead to self censorship. 7. Lawmaking process has collapsed: - The new IT Rules consultations have a 15 day deadline. - Implementation timeline for the last one was 10 days. - Rules are being made where there used to be laws government by Parliament. The new rules mirror provisions from the Broadcast Bill which was withdrawn in 2024. Parliament is being bypassed. As we wrote: when the IT Secretary reportedly says that platforms should have started preparing to implement based on consultation drafts, it appears that outcomes are predetermined. Consultations appear to be a farce. MEITY, DoT and MIB are not accountable to anyone but the government for rules that are not in line with laws, and go against a key free speech verdict we got in 2015. That's why this is an infrastructure for censorship. It is in place, it is operational, and it is expanding. This is not just about the new rules. This is why we're sounding the alarm about: people need to know what is going on, and the Supreme Court needs to take this up. They are the court of last resort, meant to preserve constitutionality. P.s: Please keep a copy of this tweet, in case it gets censored. Or just tweet it and tag us... how many will they censor?