New Delhi: In a major move to update India’s digital regulatory framework, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has placed before the Supreme Court a comprehensive proposal seeking sweeping amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
The submission, which ThePrint has seen, comes in response to the Supreme Court’s March directive asking the Solicitor General to draft proposals that safeguard free speech under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution while ensuring the constitutionally permissible “reasonable restrictions” under Article 19(2).
These suggestions come in the backdrop of insensitive comments by social influencers Ranveer Allahbadia and Samay Raina that drew massive backlash.
The Chief Justice of India (CJI)-led bench Thursday passed an order for fundraising as amends while hearing a plea by Cure SMA India Foundation, which had sought action against online content that violates the dignity and right to life of persons with disabilities.
The top court simultaneously continued its scrutiny of the petitions filed by Allahbadia and others on the larger question of accountability in digital media.
The proposed overhaul follows multiple legal challenges, judicial observations, and fast-evolving concerns over AI-generated content, deepfakes, obscenity, and accessibility in India’s digital ecosystem.
Separately, 15 petitions challenging the rules were transferred to the Delhi High Court by the Supreme Court in March 2024.
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AI, deepfakes, & content standards
A key focus is the regulatory vacuum surrounding emerging technologies. The Ministry’s note explicitly references the “emerging needs and demands of civil society with regard to regulation of AI-generated content and deepfakes.”
The proposed code states that “digital content shall not” offend decency or good taste; deride any race, caste, or religion; contain obscenity, defamation, falsehoods, or content tending to incite crime or violence; glorify obscenity; or denigrate women, children, or persons with disabilities. It restricts explicit language or violent content meant for children, content unsuitable for public exhibition, and live coverage of anti-terror operations except through official briefings.
They must also deploy measures to restrict children from accessing ‘A’ rated content and follow new accessibility standards to be co-opted from draft rules already in the public domain.
A new definition is proposed for insertion in Rule 2, based on Section 67 of the IT Act and Section 292 of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code (IPC): “Obscene digital content” means any digital content that shall be deemed to be obscene if it is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if it tends to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
The ministry proposes comprehensive guidelines related to obscenity, accessibility, AI generated content, and deep fakes for digital content (including digital news & current affairs, online curated content, and user generated content).
“Digital content shall not: offend against good taste or decency, deride any race, caste, colour, creed, and nationality, contain an attack on religions or communities or visuals or words contemptuous of religious groups, contain anything obscene, defamatory, deliberative, false and suggestive innuendos and half truths, tend to incite people to crime, cause disorder, or violence, or breach of law or glorifies violence or obscenity, represent indecent, vulgar, suggestive, repulsive, or offensive themes,” it says.
Similarly, it should not denigrate women through the creation or possession or sharing/accessing/uploading or depiction in any manner of the figure of a woman, especially if it has the effect of being indecent or derogatory to women (including objectification of women or perpetuation of harmful stereotypes), or is likely to deprave, corrupt or injure the public morality or morals.
Other no-gos are denigrating children or persons with disabilities, containing any bad language or explicit scenes of violence, if meant for children, be unsuitable for unrestricted public exhibition, contravening the provisions of the Cinematograph Act, 1952, covering live coverage of any anti-terrorist operation by security forces wherein media coverage should be restricted to periodic briefing by an officer designated.
As for AI and Deepfakes guidelines, there’s a proposed section to be co-opted from the Draft Rules published by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in the public domain.
The rules further propose a detailed system for their classifying online curated content (OCC): ‘U’ rating: suitable for children and all ages; ‘U/A 7+’ rating: suitable for persons aged 7 years and above, viewable by a person under the age of 7 years with parental guidance; ‘U/A 13+’ rating: suitable for persons aged 13 years and above, viewable by a person under the age of 13 years with parental guidance; ‘U/A 16+’ rating: suitable for persons aged 16 years and above, viewable by a person under the age of 16 years with parental guidance; ‘A’ rating: restricted to adults.
Content classification, it says, may be based on criteria such as themes and messages, violence, nudity, sex, language, drug and substance abuse, and horror.
About display and technical requirements, the publisher must prominently display the classification rating and a content description for each programme. For content classified as U/A 13+ or higher, the publisher must ensure that access control mechanisms, such as parental locks, are made available.
A publisher of content classified as ‘A’ shall implement a reliable age verification mechanism for viewership, it says. Publishers providing access to ‘A’ rated content shall take all efforts to restrict access to such content by a child through the implementation of appropriate access control measures.
Guidelines on accessibility for OCC are also proposed, to be co-opted from Draft Rules published by I&B Ministry in the public domain.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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