Maharashtra Minister of State for Home, IT, Housing, Transport, Parliamentary Affairs and Ex-Servicemen Welfare Satej Patil on Saturday hit out against the Centre for its recent move to regulate social media and over-the-top (OTT) platforms, saying that it was nothing but act of infringing the privacy of individuals and free speech under the Constitution.

Dubbing the move as an act of “suppressing” the voice of those exercising their freedom of speech, Patil said: “This move by the Centre needs to be fought tooth and nail. Such ‘dictatorial’ regulations will not be accepted by the people of this democratic country.. Some bureaucrats passing the judgement on what needs to be published or not on any media platform is nothing but an attack on the freedom of press in India”.

 “Such orders will not have any standing in court of law,” the minister said, as he referred to the recent Delhi court’s recent order granting bail to climate activist Disha Ravi for allegedly editing a social media material or toolkit on the ongoing farmers’ protests.

“The Centre’s move is nothing but an act to suppress the voice of those who are exercising their freedom to speech,” Patil said.

The Centre had on February 25 announced sweeping regulations for social media firms such as Facebook and Twitter as well as OTT players such as Netflix, requiring them to remove any content flagged by authorities within 36 hours and setting up a complaint redressal mechanism with an officer being based in the country.

The regulations also make it mandatory for platforms such as Twitter and WhatsApp to identify the originator of a message that authorities consider to be anti-national and against security and sovereignty of the country.