Social Media & Digital Platforms

Social media platforms must comply with the IT Act and intermediary guidelines, including publishing terms of use and privacy policy, appointing a grievance officer, a chief compliance officer, and a nodal contact person (for Significant Social Media Intermediaries with 50 lakh or more registered users), responding to content takedown orders within prescribed timelines (3 hours for government/court orders, 2 hours for certain harmful content categories), filing monthly compliance reports, enabling identification of the first originator of information in specific cases, and implementing mechanisms for the identification and labelling of Synthetically Generated Information. The DPDP Act applies to all user data. Consumer protection rules apply to advertising and marketplace features. Non-compliance with intermediary guidelines results in loss of safe harbour, exposing the platform to direct liability for third-party content.

The 2026 IT Rules amendments introduced specific obligations for Synthetically Generated Information (SGI). Platforms offering AI creation tools must establish watermarking systems for AI-generated content, build metadata infrastructure with persistent unique identifiers, deploy classifiers for detecting synthetic content, and inform users that misuse of AI-generated content can lead to criminal punishment under the BNS, POCSO Act, and other specified statutes. Intermediaries must also inform users at least once every three months about rights, liabilities, and penalties relating to SGI. These obligations apply to any platform that enables users to create or share AI-generated text, images, audio, or video.

Under Section 79 of the IT Act, social media platforms can claim safe harbour from liability for user-generated content if they comply with the intermediary guidelines. This means the platform is not liable for content it did not create, provided it acts on valid takedown requests within the prescribed timelines, does not knowingly host unlawful content, and complies with all due diligence obligations. However, if the platform exercises editorial control, curates or promotes specific content, fails to act on a valid complaint, or does not comply with the intermediary guidelines, it loses safe harbour and faces direct liability. The distinction between passive hosting and active curation is critical and is increasingly tested in litigation.