Overview
- Parliament’s communications panel chief Nishikant Dubey said Community Notes should count as publishing and urged MeitY to make platforms disable the feature or face publisher-style obligations, while MeitY said it has not received a formal recommendation.
- The draft changes would place user-added notes about news or public policy under the information ministry’s remit, enabling standard takedown or blocking orders directed to platforms.
- The proposals warn that ignoring ministry advisories could threaten platforms’ safe-harbour protections, which shield them from legal liability for users’ posts.
- Recent reporting shows the government flagged several notes on posts by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders, and some of those notes were removed or briefly hidden on X.
- Digital-rights and industry voices say the scope is vague and could sweep in community-run spaces like Wikipedia and chill speech, while the IT secretary calls the move clarificatory and procedural.