You're reading it here first: The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) wrote a letter to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) requesting an extension of time in implementing the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. MediaNama has read a copy of the undated letter by FICCI Secretary General Dilip Chenoy to MEITY Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney. The Rules, notified in February, put social media companies and OTT streaming services on a tight leash, with strict content takedown provisions for companies like Facebook and Twitter. We have reached out to FICCI and Chenoy for comment. Here's what FICCI requested from the government in the letter: Extension of one year, more time to takedown: The industry body requested an extension of time limit for compliance of one year, a significant demand considering that the industry has been given hardly a couple months to come into total compliance. FICCI cited the complexity of building systems to comply quickly as a justification for the timeframe. The industry body also said that 72 hours was too little time to comply with takedown requests, and requested more time for this. Limit to scope of IT Act: The letter goes on to say that intermediary liability protections under the Shreya Singhal judgement need to be respected, and observes that procedural safeguards under Section 69A of the IT Act are not in the Rules. It also said that granting blocking powers to an Inter-Departmental Committee by the…
