Why govt's proposal for proactive filtering is not as absurd as critics say

It's time to rethink the legal immunity we hand out to massive internet companies

After several months of speculation over possible amendments to India’s intermediary laws, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has published draft amendments called the Information Technology Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment) Rules, 2018.

These have been drafted under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, which provision deals with intermediary liability.  

The government’s proposal – especially the requirement to proactively identify and disable content – has come under heavy criticism on the grounds that it creates a pre-censorship regime like the one found in China. The issue is a lot more complicated than is being made out by the government’s critics.

The duty to