Govt to announce social media guidelines for Facebook, Twitter and others

Apart from a grievance officer whose details should be prominently displayed on the platform, rules also ask for appointment of a Chief Compliance Officer responsible for ensuring adherence to the Act

The government is today expected to announce the social media and intermediary guidelines, which will be applicable to firms like Facebook, Google, Twitter and others.

According to a document shared by the Internet Freedom Foundation ahead of the formal announcement, the rules are going to be called “Information Technology (guidelines for intermediaries and digital media ethics code) rules 2021".

The rules define an intermediary as including "websites, apps and portals of social media networks, media sharing websites, blogs, online discussion forums and other such functionally similar intermediaries".

A social media intermediary has been defined as one "which primarily or solely