Internet has emerged as a potent tool that can cause unimaginable disruption to the democratic polity, the government has told the Supreme Court. The Ministry of Information Technology said in an affidavit that rules to regulate social media intermediaries needed to be revised. The order came on a petition filed by the social media giant Facebook for transfer of pleas concerning the linking of social media accounts to Aadhaar. Social media intermediaries like Facebook and WhatsApp have argued that this would lead to loss of individual privacy. The government said detailed discussions were on at various levels, including inter-ministerial, as the issue was complex and concerned the functioning of netizens, government departments/ministries, social media platforms, messaging platforms, websites and mobile apps.

Source: The Hindu October 21, 2019 14:53 UTC