Working hard to meet Indian IT rules for social media: Facebook

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With the deadline to comply with the new IT rules meant for big social media platforms in India ending on Tuesday, Facebook said that the company aims to comply with the provisions of the new intermediary guidelines and is working towards it.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had asked the social media platform to abide by the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 by May 25, or face strict action.

A Facebook spokesperson said that the company is putting operational processes in place to meet the new IT rules.

"We aim to comply with the provisions of the IT rules and continue to discuss a few of the issues which need more engagement with the government," a company spokesperson said in a statement.

"Pursuant to the IT rules, we are working to implement operational processes and improve efficiencies. Facebook remains committed to people's ability to freely and safely express themselves on our platform," the spokesperson added.

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Twitter was yet to speak officially on the May 25 deadline.

The MeitY had announced its draft new IT (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules for social media platforms on February 25.

As per the new rules, the social media platforms will have to remove offending content within 36 hours after a government directive or a legal order.

The new rules mandate that the intermediaries, including social media intermediaries, must establish a grievance redressal mechanism for receiving/resolving complaints from the users or victims.

Only homegrown micro-blogging platform Koo has met the compliance requirements of the new IT (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2021.

Koo said it has also implemented a due diligence and grievance redressal mechanism supported by an Indian resident Chief Compliance Officer, Nodal Officer and Grievance Officer.

"Complying with the new social media guidelines published by the government of India within time clearly shows why it's important to have Indian social media players thriving in the country," said Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-Founder and CEO of Koo.

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