India’s new rules for social media is a sign that New Delhi is hardening its stance toward Big Tech, experts told CNBC.
Internet giants like Facebook, Amazon and Google — collectively known as Big Tech — have accrued billions of users on their digital platforms globally. They’ve invested billions of dollars over the years as they see India, a country with over 600 million internet users, as a crucial growth engine for the future.
“I do believe the Indian government has become less accommodative over the years,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at Tufts University’s The Fletcher School.
To be clear, India is not alone.
Regulators around the world have also ramped up scrutiny on the outsized influence of Silicon Valley’s tech titans. From the United States to Europe and Australia, regulators are tightening the rules to keep Big Tech in check.
Keeping Big Tech in check
From tackling fake news to preventing monopolistic practices, the Indian government has come down hard on Big Tech in recent months.
In February, New Delhi announced sweeping reforms to that would hold social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and others more accountable to legal requests. They would be required to take down content the government deems “unlawful” while messaging service providers would be required to identify original posters of certain messages — but that could mean breaking end-to-end encryption promised to users.
The regulation was introduced days after India rebuked Twitter in early February for not promptly complying with orders to take down certain content the government alleged were spreading misinformation about farmers protesting new agricultural reforms.
Misinformation, which often spreads rapidly through social platforms, is a concern in India. For example, three years ago, a rumor circulated on WhatsApp reportedly got several people killed in India.
Anti-competitive practices from the big tech companies have also earned regulatory scrutiny — particularly moves that are seen as putting Indian firms at a disadvantage, according to Trisha Ray, an associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation’s (ORF) Technology and Media Initiative.
“Content moderation has also been another point of contention,” Ray said, adding that social media companies have come under fire for not taking down certain kinds of content that the Indian government believes threaten public safety.
Why now?
Chakravorti outlined several reasons why India is becoming less accommodative toward Big Tech.
A big driver is the rise of India’s homegrown platforms such as Reliance Jio, which “benefits from the government taking a more aggressive stance on the US tech companies as it (Jio) looks to develop its own apps and services,” he told CNBC in an email.
Other reasons include the government’s political ambitions, such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push for self-reliance and appeasing the “Hindu religious right,” he said. The landmark “Make In India” policy — which is aimed at reviving India’s manufacturing sector through higher domestic and foreign participation — is another factor, he said.
“Finally, the government increasingly wants to control the media narratives across the country,” Chakravorti said.
“While traditional media is easier to control, social media being user generated and amplified is harder; so it is easy to see why the government wants to exert greater control over the social media companies and set very strong content moderation rules,” he added.
Regulatory scrutiny has increased in recent years around data protection, privacy, election interference and disinformation, Apar Gupta, executive director at the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital liberties organization in India, told CNBC.
