WhatsApp

Earlier, these social media platforms enjoyed legal immunity for the content posted by any user on their platform. The only obligation for them was to take down the post if it was deemed to be illegal by the government or any other verified source. In simple terms, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter were not answerable to the government for content posted by the platform's users.

The war of words between the IT Ministry and Twitter that began in February during the farmers' protests has now turned ugly with the latest toolkit controversy. On the other hand, WhatsApp has gone ahead with implementing its controversial user privacy policy from May 15, clearing stating that "we will maintain this approach until at least the forthcoming PDP (personal data protection) law comes into effect".

According to official sources, in its notice to the company, the ministry has said that there are various options available for the messaging platform under Indian law. The government has told WhatsApp to respond to its concerns by May 25. Noting that many Indian users depend on WhatsApp for communicating on a daily basis, the ministry said that it is irresponsible for WhatsApp to leverage position in Indian market to impose unfair terms and conditions.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing WhatsApp, submitted before a bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh that it is trying to get users on board, but if they do not agree to the privacy policy, then the company will slowly delete these user accounts.

Giving an interim solace for those who do not accept the new policy, WhatsApp has said that its users will not immediately lose their accounts or face curtailed functionalities on the platform on May 15, but they will have to eventually go through limited functions if they fail to accept the new norms in the due course of time.

A single bench of Justice Navin Chawla said it did not find merit in the petition and refused to quash the CCI probe. The court said probe cannot be quashed merely because CCI did not await the outcome of the cases pending before the Supreme Court and the High Court.

The traders' association had filed the plea seeking direction to the Centre to frame guidelines to govern large technology-based companies such as WhatsApp Inc, Facebook Inc. and Facebook India Online Services Pvt Ltd.After a brief hearing in the matter, senior advocate Vivek Sood, representing CAIT, prayed for withdrawal of this petition with liberty to approach the Delhi High Court.

A bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh issued notice to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology seeking their stand on the plea by March 15. Prior to this, another petition regarding the new privacy policy matter was filed in the court but this is the first time notice has been issued to the central government in the matter.

The intervention application has been filed by Internet Freedom Foundation in the 2017 matter of Karmanya Singh Sareen and others, which was against the 2016 privacy policy of the company. This matter is being heard by the apex court.

The allegations of a Facebook bias towards the BJP were reported in The Wall Street Journal in August 2020 and had claimed that Ankhi Das, the platform's then India Policy Head had opposed the idea of removing hate posts by BJP leaders, warning that this could hamper their "commercial interests".