India draft rules would tie platforms’ safe-harbor to ministry directives; Human Rights Watch urges withdrawal

India’s technology ministry is seeking public comment on draft rules that would expand the government’s leverage over online platforms and bring some user-posted news and current-affairs content under India’s digital media code. On Friday, Human Rights Watch urged the government to withdraw the proposal before the April 29 deadline.

The draft amendments, published March 30 by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, or MeitY, would make platforms’ legal protection from liability more dependent on following a broad set of ministry-issued instructions. They would also extend the existing digital media “Code of Ethics” beyond formal publishers to cover “intermediaries and news and current affairs content hosted by non-publisher users” under changes to Part III and Rule 8. MeitY described the proposal as “clarificatory and procedural in nature” and said it was meant to “improve legal certainty, strengthen enforceability of Ministry directions, and ensure effective oversight of intermediary-hosted content, particularly news and current affairs.”

The most consequential change is a proposed new Rule 3(4). Under India’s IT Act, Section 79 gives intermediaries such as social media platforms a form of safe harbor, meaning they are generally shielded from liability for user content if they meet due-diligence obligations. The draft would add compliance with “clarifications, advisories, directions, SOPs, codes of practice and guidelines” issued by MeitY to those obligations, potentially broadening the range of executive documents platforms must follow to retain that protection.

The proposal would also revise Rule 14, strengthening the role of an Inter-Departmental Committee in reviewing online content. The draft would expand the scope and functioning of that committee, a move critics say would give executive authorities a larger hand in deciding what content should face action.

Human Rights Watch, in a statement released Friday, said the changes would increase executive control over online speech, chill expression and undermine privacy. The group said the extension of the Code of Ethics could sweep in ordinary users who post or comment on news and current affairs, subjecting them to a framework previously used for digital news publishers. That interpretation is shared by other civil-society critics, though the ministry’s notice frames the amendments as procedural clarifications.

The legal backdrop is important. India already has statutory powers under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, to order online content blocked, and Section 79 sets the liability shield for intermediaries. In the 2015 case Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, India’s Supreme Court upheld Section 69A but said blocking orders had to follow procedural safeguards, including written reasons, issuance by an officer of at least joint-secretary rank, notice to an identifiable originator and review by a committee. Critics of the new draft argue it pushes regulation further toward administrative control by tying safe harbor to compliance with a wider universe of ministry directives, rather than relying only on formal blocking orders with those safeguards.

The proposal is the latest step in a series of tightening rule changes since 2021. That year, India expanded its IT rules to cover digital news publishers and streaming services. In 2023, the government added a fact-checking provision, but the Supreme Court stayed its implementation in March 2024. In October 2025, the government formalized the Sahyog portal, a centralized system for coordinating takedown requests. A notification issued Feb. 10, 2026, and effective Feb. 20, shortened some compliance timelines, including a three-hour removal window for certain unlawful content after official notice.

Human Rights Watch and other observers say takedown activity has increased in 2026, though exact numbers are not publicly known because many orders are not disclosed.

MeitY originally gave the public until April 14 to respond to the draft, then extended the deadline to April 29 on April 10. Human Rights Watch said the government should use that period to scrap the proposal rather than finalize it.

“The Indian government has repeatedly amended information technology rules since 2021, with each amendment giving the authorities increasing control over online content,” said Jayshree Bajoria, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.