New social media rules ‘dire, drastic and draconian’, says Congress

The Congress on Wednesday criticised the central government’s new social media rules, which came into effect on May 25, calling them “dire, drastic and draconian”.

“The issuance of the new intermediary guidelines reflect the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] government’s syndrome, which is a ‘Big Daddy syndrome’,” Congress’ spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said at a virtual press briefing. “…You would make the North Korean model of control of the media blush.”

The Congress leader said that the Narendra Modi-led government was the first one “to create a social media police”, and added that that he powers would be concentrated in the hands of bureaucrats of ministries.

Singhvi said that the rules were an attempt by the government to “subordinate every pillar and agency of freedom of thought and expression”.

“We implore you [Narendra] Modi ji, we implore you BJP, one oxygen during Covid times you have diminished, please don’t do it to the oxygen of democracy…Please don’t strangulate it, please don’t asphyxiate it,” Singhvi said.

He pointed out that the Rule 4(2) of the intermediary rules introduced the requirement of traceability, which would break end-to-end encryption of messages sent on social media. Significantly, messaging platform WhatsApp moved the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, pointing out the same aspect of the rules

WhatsApp challenged a provision…

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