BJP leader Tejasvi Surya has urged the government to repeal safe harbour protections guaranteed to internet intermediaries in India, declaring the protections as “unconstitutional” and ultra vires to the IT Act, 2000. He called for new rules to govern social media platforms, to protect fundamental rights, “especially those of the nationalistic approach”. Twitter, FB & such foreign social media platforms cannot arbitrarily censor free speech. While they claim benefits as intermediaries, they interfere with content. IT Intermediary Guidelines Rules is ultravires parent act & Constitution. I urge @GoI_MeitY to make amendments. pic.twitter.com/M6NWnWZLI8 — Tejasvi Surya (@Tejasvi_Surya) September 23, 2020 Surya brought this up during the zero hour of Lok Sabha on Wednesday evening. The Intermediary Guidelines, while laying down what content platforms can prohibit, “go far beyond” the scope of what can reasonably be restricted under free speech laws, Surya said. “They are problematic because they empower private foreign enterprises performing essentially a public function to act as censors of free speech without Government oversight, thus effectively and severely impacting safeguards of fundamental right to free speech,” he declared. These guidelines are not only ultra vires the parent statute, but also unconstitutional as the grounds they provide for are so wide that they will fail the standards of constitutionality set out by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal case while striking down Section 66(A) of the IT Act — Tejasvi Surya Surya said the trigger was the recent controversies regarding censure of free speech by Facebook, Twitter, and their affiliates in…
