Why Facebook, Twitter, Instagram might get banned in India? - A Deep Analysis

In the past few days, the headlines and the major posts on various social media handles were about the ban of the social media applications in India. Let’s look at why the social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram might get banned in India.

Why The Government of India might ban Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
The new Social media norms by The Government of India
Social media platforms that have not accepted the new norm
Will the Social media Apps really get banned?
The Consequences of the Social media Ban
FAQ

Why The Government of India might ban Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

During the month of February, the Government of India had provided a new norm that is supposed to be followed by all the social media companies in the country. The Government of India had provided a time period of 3 months where the deadline for accepting the new norms was on 25 May 2021.

The social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp have not accepted the norms and have not made any provision to follow the norms.

The new Social media norms by The Government of India

As per the new norm, the large social media platforms defined as those who have more than 50 lakh registered users will have to appoint a resident grievance officer as part of a larger grievance redressal mechanism, they will also have to actively monitor the content on their platform and also provide a monthly compliance report for Indian users and self-regulation mechanism.

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Social media platforms that have not accepted the new norm

As of now only the Indian based social media application Koo has accepted the norms and the guidelines put forward by the government. The other social media giants have not accepted the norms and WhatsApp has also filed a complaint against the government in the High Court of Delhi.

The social media giants such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter have conveyed that accepting the new norm would end the privacy of the users and messaging platforms such as WhatsApp will no longer be end-to-end encrypted.

Will the Social media Apps really get banned?

It is to be noted that if the social media platforms do not comply with the new norms and don’t follow the guidelines, they will not be banned by the Government but they will lose their status as a social media platform and various protections they receive as intermediaries.

The Government of India can also file a case against the social media companies for not following the rules as per the law of land.

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The Consequences of the Social media Ban

The main consequence if the social media platforms accept the ban would be faced by the users and the citizens of the country is that they would lose the right to speech and they would not be able to freely express their view points on the social media platforms.

If the social media platforms are banned in the country it would largely affect the economy of the country adding to a lot of people becoming unemployed as a large number of people run their online businesses through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

The ban on the social media giants will also largely affect the other companies in India as they rely on these platforms for advertising their products and services. The social media platforms even provide an option where the companies can target their customers.

It would even affect the Indian based employees working in the various social media companies as the ban would lead to unemployment to a lot of them working in the Indian subsidiaries of the social media companies.

This is estimated to largely affect the economy as the businesses which have build a profile on the social media platforms would run under loss and also taking the critical situation of the Covid pandemic and increase of unemployment in the country would have a large effect on the economy of the country.

FAQ

Why is social media getting banned?

Social media apps might get banned if they fail to comply with the new intermediary guidelines for social media platforms.

What is the new IT rules for social media?

The new IT Rules 2021 for digital media platforms includes the requirement to appoint a resident grievance officer as part of a larger grievance redressal mechanism, active monitoring of content on the platform, and monthly compliance reports for Indian users.

Has WhatsApp sued Indian government?

Yes, WhatsApp has filed a case in the Delhi High Court against the Indian government, seeking to block the new IT rules.

Conclusion

India has around 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook users, 21 crore Instagram users and around 1.75 crore Twitter account holders. These are the major social media companies operating in India and the Indian based application Koo has around 60 lakh users.