Making this worse are the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (the “Intermediary Rules”)[3]. Among the many issues, they increase obligations on large social media platforms (above 5e5 users), enforce government takedowns within 36 hours, enable mandatory social media verification, enforce algorithmic (AI-driven) censorship and change intermediary liability to criminal. IFF has gotten one victory against these in court[2], but there's a long way to go.
[0]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-threatens-twitter-with-pe...
[1]: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/india-threa...
[a]: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/01/twitter-restricts-over-a-d...
[b]: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/03/india-sends-warning-to-twi...
[3]: https://internetfreedom.in/intermediaries-rules-2021/
[2]: https://internetfreedom.in/kerala-hc-grants-a-stay-of-the-op...