"The ministry used a government platform known as Sahyog to issue notices to a range of social media companies, including Meta and Google, which owns YouTube, demanding they pull down posts that the Indian government deemed detrimental to law and order. Most platforms complied: the government has threatened that those who do not, risk losing what is known as their intermediary immunity status, which shields them from legal liability for the content posted on their sites."
"Until late last year, such takedown notices were issued solely by two federal ministries: the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (IT), and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B). But in October 2024, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Sahyog platform, extending the power to issue takedown demands to all federal and state government agencies, and even district-level officials and the police."
The Sahyog platform allows any federal, state, district-level official, and the police to issue social media takedown demands. The Ministry of Railways used Sahyog after a stampede at New Delhi railway station to ask platforms to remove posts critical of the government. Most platforms complied following government warnings that noncompliance could jeopardize their intermediary immunity from legal liability. Since Sahyog's October 2024 launch, officials have sought removal of content from 3,465 URLs across nearly 300 demands, according to RTI-obtained data. The decentralization of takedown authority raises concerns about circumvention of judicial safeguards, reduced transparency, and chilling effects on free expression.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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