Overview
- The electronics ministry published draft changes on March 30 to extend broadcast-style rules to more user posts, bringing X’s crowdsourced Community Notes under the information ministry when they touch news or public policy.
- Under the draft, officials could send takedown or blocking orders to platforms for notes deemed unlawful, and ignoring advisories could risk the Section 79 safe-harbour that shields platforms from liability for user content.
- The chair of Parliament’s IT panel, Nishikant Dubey, said the committee told the government that Community Notes should be treated as publishing and suggested disabling the feature or levying a publishers’ tax, though the ministry said it has received no formal recommendation.
- The push follows cases this year where notes under posts by senior BJP figures, including the prime minister and union ministers, were flagged to X and some notes were removed or briefly disappeared, raising questions about who is accountable for crowd-written corrections.
- Digital-rights groups warn the draft concentrates executive power over speech, while the IT secretary calls the changes procedural and experts argue that hosting and ranking user notes does not turn an intermediary into a publisher.