Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday said social media platforms must take responsibility for content, take necessary steps to ensure child safety, implement algorithmic transparency measures, and give citizens an effective voice to address grievances.
The Minister said that the internet and social media landscape has changed, and asserted that platforms must proactively protect society from serious online harms, including digital arrest scams.
Vaishnaw’s comments make it abundantly clear that platforms can no longer act as passive distributors of user content. Active content moderation and oversight are required. This means platforms must actively identify and remove content that breaches the law or would cause actual harm. The Minister noted that the current digital environment (with content spreading faster, becoming more personalised, and increasing in volume) has rendered the previous approach completely inadequate.
Child safety was a very distinct and important element of the statement. Platforms were required to put in place appropriate technical and operational safeguards to protect children from inappropriate content, predatory behaviour, and other risks inherent in how children use these services.
The Minister was very clear that these obligations had to be met, not treated as optional best practices. This was a significant element of the statement, given the scale of children’s engagement with these services.
Algorithmic transparency got the same treatment. Vaishnaw was very clear that mechanisms needed to be in place to allow the public and regulators to understand how recommendation algorithms work, how content is ranked and amplified, and how personal data is used to shape the content people see.
Without that transparency, you can’t tell whether the platforms are inadvertently promoting harmful content or discriminating in ways that affect people’s rights and access to information.
On grievance redressal, the Minister made it clear that citizens need a real voice.
That means systems must be accessible, respond in a timely fashion, and deliver results when someone complains about illegal or otherwise harmful content, an account issue, etc. The existing complaint mechanisms have been widely criticised for slow responses and a lack of transparency in how decisions are made; the Minister’s view is that there needs to be greater accountability and a real avenue for redress.
The Minister has placed those obligations in the context of the growing problem of online harms. He specifically referenced “digital arrest” scams where fraudsters pose as police or government officials, claim you are being subject to some form of remote or “digital” arrest, and then get you to send them money under the threat of further action. That’s clearly a category of fraud that’s been on the rise. Vaishnaw made it clear that platforms need to be proactive in identifying and shutting down such activity, rather than waiting for a report.
The Minister outlined a shift in platforms’ obligations, saying they will now need to adopt proactive measures on content responsibility, child protection, algorithmic accountability, user grievance redressal, and preventing serious harm. According to the Minister, these changes are necessary because the evolving digital environment has amplified the speed, scale, and nature of online risks.