The Kerala High Court on March 10 restrained the Centre from taking coercive action against Live Law Media Private Ltd., which owns a legal news portal, for any non-compliance with Part III of the new social media intermediaries.
When the petition came up, counsel for the Centre submitted that there was time till March 24 for complying with the rules.
‘Chilling effect’
The petition said Part III of the rules imposed an unconstitutional three-tier complaints and adjudication structure on publishers. This administrative regulation on digital news media would make it virtually impossible for small or medium-sized publishers, such as the petitioner, to function. It would have a chilling effect on such entities, the petition said.
The creation of a grievance redressal mechanism, through a governmental oversight body (an inter-departmental committee constituted under Rule 14) amounted to excessive regulation, the petitioner contended.
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The petition also added that the rules obligating messaging intermediaries to alter their infrastructure to “fingerprint” each message on a mass scale for every user to trace the first originator was violative of the fundamental right of the Internet users to privacy.
