Foreign news and content publishers online could incur significant costs and may need to formally register now that they are subject to Indian law, as per the governments' new Intermediary Liability and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021 for digital media firms and digital news platforms. Under these rules, foreign news publishers and publishers of curated content will be answerable to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) which has the power to reprimand them and block their content, among other actions, in cases of non-compliance. "There will have to be some sort of registration for these activities, since the rules are applicable to publishers who operate in India or conducts systematic business activity of making content available in India," said Chandrima Mitra, Partner, DSK Legal. She told MediaNama that it remains to be seen how the government implements these rules and how companies work around these rules and rethink their operations in India. A bit of context: Notified last week, the rules require all digital media organisations and online news publishers, including foreign publishers, to create a grievance redressal mechanism and appoint grievance redressal officers within India. They would also have to be part of digital media self-regulatory organisation (SRO) as well as follow codes which have only been applicable to print and TV news so far. The rules also lay out specific procedures through which the government can issue orders to publishers to modify or take down content under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 against both…
