New Delhi: The Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Ashwini Vaishnaw, had called for revisiting the “safe harbour” provision that shields online intermediaries from liability for user content, a parliamentary committee has recorded, while asking the ministry to spell out what action it has taken after its response confined itself to restating existing rules.
The report comes as the same committee, chaired by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, is engaged in a standoff with Meta over the temporary removal of a Facebook video posted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The committee gave Meta three days to take action against those responsible for the takedown and insisted that CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself issue a public apology, warning of action if accountability is not fixed. Dubey said that if Zuckerberg did not apologise, “the safe harbour protection under Section 79 should be withdrawn from him”. The row followed an August 3 meeting of representatives from the MHA and MeitY and platforms including Meta, Google, X, Snapchat and YouTube on platform regulation, with Meta officials meeting government officials, including Vaishnaw, on 5 and 6 August.
In its twenty-eighth report, presented to the Lok Sabha and laid in the Rajya Sabha on 6 August, the Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology (2025-26) examined the government’s action taken on the panel’s earlier report on ‘Review of mechanism to curb Fake News’.
