Army can now directly report online posts for removal | Latest News India

New Delhi: The defense ministry has notified a senior officer – additional directorate general (ADG) of strategic communications in the Indian army – as the ‘nodal officer’ who can send notices, including takedown notices, to social media intermediaries on illegal practices. Content related to indian army and its components are covered by Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act.

Before this notice, the Indian Army relied on the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to retrieve illegal army-related content that was forcibly removed or blocked, an Army insider aware of the matter said.

“Through this notification, the ADG (strategic communications) will be able to highlight cases and directly notify the intermediaries when we find illegal content related to the Indian army. It is then up to the intermediaries to decide what to do with this content,” he said.

The person emphasized that the impact of many such contents is immediate and takes much longer to be made available through MeitY. “For example, if a Pakistan“If we make a diversion that proliferates misinformation or disinformation, we should be in a position to notify intermediaries directly.”

The person added that in matters related to national security and where the military’s image is affected, there is now a direct way to notify companies.

Read more: ‘Terrorists keep coming’: Farooq Abdullah downplays Army’s Akhnoor encounter

Section 79 of the IT Act lays down the conditions under which an intermediary can claim safe harbor protection from liability for third-party content. But Section 79(3)(b) says that such protection will not be available if the intermediary fails to remove or disable access after being notified by the “appropriate” government or its “agency.”

While HT could not ascertain how many blocking orders or takedown notices have been issued to social media companies or other intermediaries to block or remove content related to the Indian army, it has learned that no fresh notice has been issued since the October 24 notification.

In February, the ministry of information and broadcasting had ordered Delhi-based news magazine The Caravan to remove a story about allegations of civilian abuse and torture, based on inputs from the defense ministry, Intelligence Bureau and Jammu and Kashmir Police. and murder by the Indian army in Jammu under the IT (Intermediaries Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics) Rules, 2021, an order that the magazine has since challenged in court.

HT had reported on February 4 that, according to legal experts, Section 79(3)(b) creates a gray area on who can direct intermediaries to remove content, for what reason and whether it can be challenged.

“Section 79(3)(b) creates a blocking process, separate from Section 69A, with a much lower threshold for issuing takedown notices and powers a much broader set of ministries, ministries and law enforcement agencies,” said Pavit Singh Katoch, general counsel. “It gives,” he said. I told HT on Inshorts in February.