![handle is hein.journals/convrg12013 and id is 1 raw text is: Intermediary liability under Indian law:
Twitter
Tuesday 8 January 2013
Rodney D Ryder* and Ashwin Madhavan**
Introduction
Social media has revolutionised the way individuals communicate in today's world. Social networking sites like
Facebook and Twitter have experienced enormous growth in the past five years in India; with Facebook growing
more than five times in the last two years to 50 million users; and Twitter (a pioneer in micro blogging) currently
having a user base of 13 million users in India.
Social networking websites have recently appeared on the radar of government law enforcement agencies in
India. The moot question is whether social networking sites violate any provisions of various Indian laws when
unsolicited content is uploaded onto their respective websites. In the past few months, there have been a number
of cases filed by various individuals against social networking sites on matters related to unsolicited content on
the internet. Law enforcement agencies are trying their level best to regulate the internet from a new perspective.
Many legal principles such as defamation, data protection/privacy are evolving in the new internet age. This
article will focus on some of important legal issues that are in the limelight in terms of social media.
The focus of this article is on the various liability issues that could be raised in India with regards to content on
the social networking website Twitter. This article discusses the legal risks that apply, or potentially apply, to
users of Twitter, as well as Twitter as an entity if it fails to remove objectionable content posted by its users on its
website.
Section 79: safe harbour
Section 79 of the Information Technology Act 2000 [Amended in 2008] (the 'IT Act') provides for an exemption to
an intermediary. The meaning of the term 'intermediary' has been defined under section 2(w) of the IT Act.
According to the IT Act, any individual who on behalf of another receives, stores and transmits information or
provides any other service with respect to that information comes under the category of an intermediary. This
also includes internet service providers such as Twitter or Facebook, which are restricted to receiving, storing
and transmitting information about individuals to their 'friends', 'subscribers' and 'followers'. Such intermediaries
merely act as a platform for people to communicate with one another.
Section 79 of the IT Act exempts an intermediary from liability in certain circumstances. The prerequisites have
been mention in the IT Rules on Intermediaries. They are as follows:
1. An intermediary must not be held liable for third party content, information or data hosted by it if:
the function of intermediary is limited to providing access to a communication system;
the intermediary did not initiate the transmission;
the intermediary did not select the receiver of the transmission;
the intermediary did not select or modify the information contained in the transmission; and/or
the intermediary observed due diligence while discharging his/her duties under this Act.
2. The intermediary did not conspire, abet, aide or induce the commission of the unlawful act.
3. The intermediary has never had the knowledge of, nor has it been sent a notice to remove the
objectionable material, nor has it failed to remove it on request.
Anyone would safely assume after reading section 79 that Twitter and other social networking sites would not be
held liable for unwarranted content that has been uploaded onto their respective websites. However, this is not
the case because under the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011, Rule 4(4), the
intermediary is bound to remove the objectionable content within 36 hours from its servers if the objectionable
content is brought to the notice of the intermediary. If the intermediary fails to remove such content, then it would
be held liable under the relevant laws of India.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/convrg12013&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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