On June 2nd, 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (‘MeitY’) proposed amendments to IT Rules, 2021 to ‘address the gaps identified’ and invited comments on the proposal. Instead of addressing the gaps, the proposals perpetuated the already existing illegalities in the IT Rules, and sought to impose impractical obligations on social media platforms and subjected them to direct government oversight. As soon as the proposed amendments were published, we summarised our concerns on Twitter. Later in the day, it was reported that MeitY had decided to withdraw the proposal and that the proposal may be released again next week.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://internetfreedom.in/meity-publishes-and-then-withdraws-a-proposal-to-amend-it-rules-2021/