Government reiterates legal obligations of OTT platforms and social media intermediaries under IT Rules, 2021
PIB reiteration on IT Rules, 2021 due diligence obligations for OTT publishers and social media intermediaries
- The rules impose different compliance duties based on whether an entity is a publisher of online curated content or an intermediary for user-generated content.
- OTT publishers must not transmit content prohibited by law for the time being in force.
- Social media intermediaries must make reasonable efforts to cause users not to display, upload, host, store, transmit, display, or publish unlawful information.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting reiterated obligations under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 for OTT publishers and social media intermediaries. OTT publishers are bound by the non-transmission duty for content prohibited by law for the time being in force. Social media intermediaries are bound by due diligence obligations to use reasonable efforts to prevent unlawful user-generated content from being displayed, uploaded, hosted, stored, transmitted, or published.
What happened
A written reply in the Rajya Sabha stated the compliance duties that the IT Rules, 2021 impose on OTT publishers and social media intermediaries.
UPSC can frame the issue around how the IT Rules, 2021 allocate duties across the digital content chain—OTT publishers under Part-III for non-transmission of prohibited content, and social media intermediaries under Part-II for due diligence against unlawful user-generated content.
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