!Joey

Statement: Proposed withdrawal of safe harbour under Section 79 5 November 2026 The Internet Freedom Foundation is alarmed by the Indian Express that the Ministry of Electronics and IT has begun discussions on stripping social media platforms of safe harbour under Section 79 of the IT Act, 2000. Nobody should mistake this for a move against Big Tech for it is a move against the people who use these platforms. Safe harbour is not a gift to Meta, Google or X. It is the legal foundation that lets ordinary Indians speak online without a platform's lawyers deciding in advance whether their post is worth the risk and taking it down. If it is taken away, and every platform becomes liable for every post, comment and video. The rational response for any company is to remove anything that might draw a complaint, a notice or a summons. Criticism of the government, reporting on protests, satire, and the speech of people without lawyers will be the first casualties which are already being censored by automated filters implemented pursuant to the IT Rules, 2021. The Supreme Court recognised exactly this in Shreya Singhal (2015), which is why it read down Section 79(3)(b) to require a court order or a lawful government direction before platforms must act. The timing tells its own story as the report says that MEITY’s rethink was shaped by a view within government that platform algorithms have favoured Opposition and anti-establishment narratives over official messaging, and by the role of Instagram during the student protests in July. In other words, the complaint is not that platforms host too much illegal content but it is that they host too much content the government dislikes. This is also the latest step in an escalation that has been building for years. The 2023 Fact Check Unit amendment tried to make the government the arbiter of truth about itself, until the Bombay High Court struck it down. The Sahyog portal has turned Section 79(3)(b) into a parallel, opaque takedown channel that sidesteps the safeguards of Section 69A, a practice X is now challenging in court. In August, a Parliamentary Standing Committee gave Mark Zuckerberg three days to apologise personally for the brief removal of the Prime Minister's video or face the loss of safe harbour. Subsequently advisories were issued on October 8, 2026 and October 10, 2026 pressuring digital platforms to implement pro-active censorship through, “enhanced due diligence”. Safe harbour was never meant to be a bargaining chip that MEITY waves at a company to extract compliance. There are real problems on these platforms such as child sexual abuse material, non-consensual intimate imagery and deepfakes. The Supreme Court's observations in Just Rights for Children Alliance on October 15 deserve a serious answer. But the answer is targeted, rights-respecting obligations with independent oversight, transparency about takedowns, and a grievance process that works for users. It is not a liability regime that pushes platforms to delete first and never ask. Nor is it a rule that platforms must clear product changes with the government before shipping them, which would hand the state a license raj over the design of the services Indians use every day. Any change of this scale must go through Parliament, with a published draft, a genuine consultation and a full debate. It cannot be settled in closed-door meetings between the Ministry and a handful of companies. What IFF will do IFF will send a detailed representation to the Ministry of Electronics and IT setting out why the proposed changes to Section 79 are unconstitutional and unworkable, and what a rights-respecting approach to platform accountability should look like. We will also write to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology. We are filing RTI applications with MeitY seeking the minutes, agendas, attendance lists and file notings of every meeting held on the review of safe harbour, including the meetings with Meta and other platforms in July and August, and the basis for the Ministry's assessment of how platform algorithms treat government and Opposition content. The public has a right to know who is in the room when the rules of their speech are being rewritten. We will publish what we receive, and we invite other civil society groups, journalists and platform users to join us in asking the Ministry to put any proposal to open consultation before it goes anywhere near Parliament.

Delhi Police asks X to take down IFF's account and posts. IFF will challenge the notices in court unless they are withdrawn. The Delhi Police has asked X to remove the Internet Freedom Foundation's account, six of its posts, the accounts of SFLC and @geoblockedindia, and posts by 16 other users, on the ground that they defame the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The posts document and comment on a legal notice sent in the RSS's name to IFF, SFLC and @geoblockedindia, which demanded that the three stop criticising and documenting government blocking orders. IFF received copies of the two police notices from X on the morning of 3 November 2026. IFF calls on the Delhi Police to withdraw both notices. If they are not withdrawn, IFF will challenge them in court. What has happened On 29 October 2026 at 9:54 PM, IFF, SFLC and the operator of @geoblockedindia received a two-page "legal notice" said to be issued on behalf of the RSS. It asked the three to stop opposing the government's blocking directions, stop documenting restricted content, stop posting details of geo-blocked posts, and confirm in writing within seven days that they would comply. It was signed by an unnamed "Authorised Signatory". Several RSS office-bearers have since said on X that the notice is not authentic. IFF replied to the notice, wrote to the RSS at its official address asking whether it had authorised it, and published both the notice and its reply on 30 October. On 31 October 2026 at 8:06 PM, the Special Commissioner of Police (Crime), Delhi Police, filed an "Illegal Content Report" with X (reference LD-321926). It listed two posts: IFF's post of 30 October on the notice, and SFLC post of the same day. The stated reason was that the posts are "defamatory towards the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh under Section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023". The boxes for "safety/security", "defamation" and "other" were ticked. The fields for the nature of the court order and court order details were left empty. The desired action was "Remove/withhold content". On 1 November 2026, a second notice arrived in the RSS's name. It said the matter had been handed to the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad, that complaints had been filed in several states, and that requests had been made to block IFF's X account and suspend the organisations. The Delhi Police had made its first request to X the previous evening. IFF did not know this until X told it on 3 November. On 2 November 2026 at 8:51 AM, the Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) filed a second notice with X (reference LD-322956). It lists 40 URLs. Thirty-seven are posts. Three are the entire accounts of @internetfreedom, @SFLCin and @geoblockedindia. This time the boxes for "Hate speech", "defamation", "safety/security", "enforcement of court order" and "other" were all ticked. The court order fields were again left empty. The stated reason reads: "The posts constitute defamation and illegal content under Section 356 BNS. Under Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Rules, 2021, read with Section 79(3)(b) IT Act, lawful notices require action within 3 hours." The 16 other users are @ProdctiveUseful, @PanjwaniManoj, @jidge_, @RatanSharda55, @baxiabhishek, @SchrdingersDbag, @ashleshbiradar, @seemay, @NasirHussainINC, @Being_creat_ive, @AjoyDharmavaram, @othlaw, @_ananyaaa, @AimPoojaind, @incorigibleBhai and @rraoind. Their posts, as far as IFF can tell, comment on the notice or on the notice about it. X forwarded both notice to IFF on 3 November 2026, at 8:47 AM and 10:03 AM, saying it was doing so "in the interest of transparency" and that IFF may wish to seek legal counsel and challenge the request in court. X's emails do not say that it has acted on the requests. The Delhi Police has not written to IFF, and no court has been approached, as far as the reports disclose. SFLC and @geoblockedindia have separately reported notifications from X about requests from the Uttar Pradesh Police, the Telangana Police and the Delhi Police's Cyber Crime unit, one of them against the whole of the @geoblockedindia account. IFF's position IFF condemns this legal action. A police force has made itself the enforcement arm of a private legal notice whose authenticity the organisation it names has not confirmed, and whose demand was that three organisations stop documenting censorship. The notices would deliver exactly what the notice asked for as they would also remove the accounts of the three groups in India that keep public records of what is blocked, and of who ordered it. The posts in question are about a legal notice sent to us. They quote it, criticise how it was drafted, and say that we will carry on with our work. A person who receives a threat is entitled to publish it and answer it and that is not defamation of the sender. In the three weeks before the first notice, IFF assisted 86 people whose accounts were suspended or whose posts were withheld in India. SFLC's Free Speech Tracker recorded about 268 content restrictions and 83 account restrictions in the first 29 days of October. @geoblockedindia publishes the orders behind such blocks when platforms disclose them. None of this is unlawful. Documenting censorship and challenging it in court is what the Constitution expects of citizens. IFF will not delete the posts. If the Delhi Police does not withdraw the notices, we will challenge them in court. Why the reports are unlawful Defamation is not a police matter. Section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 is a non-cognizable and bailable offence. Under Section 222 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, no court can take cognizance of it except on a complaint by the person aggrieved. Under Section 174 of the BNSS, the police cannot investigate a non-cognizable offence without an order of a Magistrate. The Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) is not the person aggrieved. The notices disclose no complaint by the RSS and no order of any Magistrate. Whether a statement is defamatory is for a court to decide after hearing its author, with the defences of truth, fair comment and good faith available to that author. In Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India, (2016) 7 SCC 221, the Supreme Court upheld criminal defamation on the strength of these safeguards. A police officer who asks a platform to remove speech as defamatory has decided the question himself, without a complainant, a court or a hearing. The posts are protected comment. Exceptions 1 to 3 to Section 356(1) protect the truth published for the public good, opinion on the public conduct of public servants, and opinion on the conduct of any person touching a public question. The posts publish a notice that was sent to us and give our opinion of it. The RSS, if it sent the notice, chose to enter a public question. If it did not, the posts defame no one. Further, Section 79(3)(b) and Rule 3(1)(d) do not permit this. In Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, (2015) 5 SCC 1, the Supreme Court read down Section 79(3)(b) so that an intermediary acquires "actual knowledge" only through a court order, or a notification from the appropriate government or its agency that unlawful acts relatable to Article 19(2) are being committed. The court said that it would be difficult for intermediaries to judge the legitimacy of the millions of requests they receive, and that the burden must not be placed on them. Rule 3(1)(d), as amended in November 2025 and February 2026, now requires the intimation to come from an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary or Deputy Inspector General, to be reasoned, and to specify the legal basis and the nature of the unlawful act, subject to a monthly review by a Secretary-level officer. The three-hour window the notice invokes applies to a lawful order that meets these conditions. A web form that ticks "hate speech" and "enforcement of court order" while leaving the court order fields blank, and that gives one sentence of reasons for 40 URLs, is not such an order. The notices by the Delhi Police are disproportionate. They seek to remove three accounts in their entirety, with years of posts, over six, four and eleven posts respectively. They sweep in 16 third parties whose only connection is that they commented on a public controversy. In Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 SCC 637, the Supreme Court held that any restriction on speech must be necessary, proportionate and the least restrictive measure available, and that orders restricting speech must be published and reasoned. Removing an organisation's entire account for criticising a legal notice fails each of these tests. The effect is to silence documentation of censorship and providing legal aid to Indian internet users. The accounts named are those that record blocking orders in India. The notice asked them to stop. A takedown request that accomplishes the demand of an anonymous private notice is not law enforcement. It is the use of state power for a private end, which Article 14 forbids. Our demands 1. To the Delhi Police: Withdraw reports LD-321926 and LD-322956 and confirm the withdrawal in writing to X and to IFF. 2. To the Delhi Police: Disclose the complaint on which the Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) acted, the authority under which the reports were filed, and whether any order of a Magistrate under Section 174 BNSS exists. Disclose every request made to any platform in this matter, including those made by the Cyber Crime unit against @geoblockedindia. 3. To X: Do not act on the reports. If any content is withheld in India, tell the affected user before acting, give them the full request, and name the legal basis. Publish both reports to the Lumen database, as the reporting form itself contemplates. 4. To the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Ministry of Home Affairs: Have the Secretary-level review required by Rule 3(1)(d) examine these intimations, and tell police forces that Rule 3(1)(d) is not a remedy for defamation, which the law reserves to the person aggrieved and to the courts. 5. To the RSS: State publicly whether it authorised either notice or any complaint to the police. If it did not, say so to the Delhi Police. If the notices are not withdrawn, IFF will challenge them in court. We will continue to document blocking orders, to publish them, and to provide legal assistance to anyone whose account or post is withheld in India. Nothing in these notices changes that.